Gag Rule Affirmative Culpepper/Powers Lab <Wave Two Edition> <This will be updated after wave four> Contention One is Inherency: Current family planning funding falls far short – the US, which historically leads the way, is slipping
Shanti R. Conly, Office of HIV/AIDS at USAID, Director of Policy Research at Population Action International, July/August 1998, “Sub-Saharan Africa at the turning point - contraceptive use gains acceptance”, The Humanist, __http://findarticles.com/p /articles/mi_m1374/is_n4_v58 /ai_20979794__ (Victor)
Advantage One: Diplomacy First, gag rule undermines US credibility and fuels anti-Americanism – we must reverse current trends to maintain our leadership role Center for Reproductive Rights, July 2001, “The Bush Global Gag Rule: A Violation of International Human Rights”, __http://www.reproductiverights .org/pdf/pub_bp_bushggr _violation.pdf__ (Victor) An increase in family planning is necessary to revitalize US soft power
Claudia Kennedy, retired Lieutenant General in the US Army, 3/16/06, “Redefining National Security for the New Global Reality”, __http://www.greenwood.com/psi /online_news.aspx__ (Victor) Soft power is key to hegemony Nye. 6/2/04. (Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, 6/2/04, “The Benefits of Soft Power”, __http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item .jhtml?id=4290&t=leadership__
<This card will be replaced with a different internal> US hegemony is critical – the only other option is a global vacuum and multiple nuclear war scenarios
Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at NYU, 2004, “A World Without Power,” Foreign Policy [ebsco] (Victor)
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Advantage Two: Democracy First, gag rule has a chilling effect on democracy promotion and civil society – peaceful democracy and abortion liberalization movements are being silenced
Rachael Seevers, JD, Brooklyn Law School, 2006, “The Politics of Gagging: The Effects of the Global Gag Rule on Democratic Participation and Political Advocacy in Peru”, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, __www.brooklaw.edu/students /journals/bjil/bjil31iii _seevers.pdf__ (Victor) The US currently coordinates efforts peacefully with European allies to promote democracy
Larry Diamond, Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, January 1998, “”Building a Democratic Africa”, Hoover Institution, __http://www.hoover.org/publicati ons/digest/3532546.html__ (Victor) US democracy promotion reduces the incentive for regional and international conflict
Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, December 1995, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives”, Carnegie Corporation (NY), __http://wwics.si.edu/subsites /ccpdc/pubs/di/di.htm__ (Victor) African democracy is critical to stability and preventing conflict and violence
Larry Diamond, Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, January 1998, “”Building a Democratic Africa”, Hoover Institution, __http://www.hoover.org/publicati ons/digest/3532546.html__ (Victor) African instability sparks nuclear war
Jeffrey Deutsch, PhD, political risk consultant, researcher and founder of the Rabid Tigers Project, 11/18/02, “THE RABID TIGER PROJECT'S MAJOR PREDICTION FOR 2025”, The Rabid Tiger Newsletter, Vol. II, No. 9, __http://mysite.verizon.net/jeff _deutsch/newsletterv2n9.html__ (Victor)
Advantage Three: Overpopulation We’ll isolate two scenarios: First is the carrying capacity Growth rates are skyrocketing in sub-Saharan Africa and overwhelm declines in industrialized nations Population Action International, April 2007, “Fewer or More? The Real Story of Global Population”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS32/Population_Growth.pdf__ (Victor) Family planning is critical to reducing population growth
Tom Gardner-Outlaw, Senior Technical Advisor of Population & Environment at USAID and Senior Researcher at Population Action International, and Robert Engelman, Vice President for Research at Population Action International, 1/1/99, “Forest Futures – Population, Consumption, and Wood”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Reports /Forest_Futures/Forest_Futures .pdf__ (Victor) Reducing the population now saves the lives of tenfold in the future
Paul Ehrlich, biology professor, Stanford, 6/16/1974, “Peasants Know Perfectly Well Where Their Babies Come From: Misconceptions” New York Times, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, p241 Overpopulation poses a grave threat to human survival – we must act before it’s too late
J. Kenneth Smail, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Kenyon College, September/October 2004, Worldwatch Institute, __http://www.worldwatch.org /system/files/EP175M.pdf__ (Victor) Second is deforestation First, African forests are being destroyed due to rapid population growth Population Action International, 2007, “Why Population Growth Matters to the Future of Forests”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS10/Summary.shtml__ (Victor) Family planning is critical to stopping deforestation before it overwhelms us Population Action International, 2007, “Why Population Growth Matters to the Future of Forests”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS10/Summary.shtml__ (Victor) Forests are the most critical part of biodiversity
Tom Gardner-Outlaw, Senior Technical Advisor of Population & Environment at USAID and Senior Researcher at Population Action International, and Robert Engelman, Vice President for Research at Population Action International, 1/1/99, “Forest Futures – Population, Consumption, and Wood”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Reports /Forest_Futures/Forest_Futures .pdf__ (Victor) Biodiversity is critical to planetary survival
Paul Warner, life sciences at American University, August 1994 (Politics and Life Sciences) p. 177
Thus the plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by providing all necessary support for unrestricted family planning programs.
Contention Three: Solvency First, the United States plays a vital role in the global health sphere – its family planning programs serve to model for foreign programs because of its empirical success and expertise Population Action International, 2007, “Why the US Should Support Family Planning Overseas”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS16/Summary.shtml__ (Victor) And, as we invest more in family planning, the benefits will be greater
Julia Ernst, Executive Director of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at Georgetown University Law Center, and Tzili Mor, international legal fellow at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, 2003, “Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule’s Impact on Unsafe Abortion”, Center for Reproductive Rights, __http://www.reproductiverights .org/pdf/bo_ggr.pdf__ (Victor) The US needs to maintain its dominant role in the health sphere – it can’t be replaced without losing lives – no one else has the necessary integrated approach, expertise or innovative research
Susan A. Cohen, Director of Government Affairs at the Guttmacher Institute, January 1997, “A Response to Concerns about Population Assistance”, __http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs /ib15.html__ (Victor) The US’s leadership role allows it to easily coordinate global efforts, forge alliances – American expertise and experience are critical to success
Wendy R. Turnbull, Senior Policy and Research Analyst at Population Action International, 1/1/96, “Endangered: U.S. Aid for Family Planning Overseas”, __http://findarticles.com/p /articles/mi_m0KDK/is_1996_Jan _1/ai_n18607203__ (Victor) The plan would free up money for further infrastructure building and development
Adam Sonfield, Senior Public Policy Associate at the Guttmacher Institute, Winter 2006, “Working to Eliminate the World’s Unmet Need for Contraception”, Guttmacher Policy Review, Volume 9, Number 1, __http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs /gpr/09/1/gpr090110.html__ (Victor) The benefits of family planning assistance spills over to other spheres of health and society – boosting assistance is necessary to stopping cuts from hurting these other spheres
Wendy R. Turnbull, Senior Policy and Research Analyst at Population Action International, 1/1/96, “Endangered: U.S. Aid for Family Planning Overseas”, __http://findarticles.com/p /articles/mi_m0KDK/is_1996_Jan _1/ai_n18607203__ (Victor)
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Contention 1 is Inherency
First, the House has passed bill removing gag rule, but Bush has vetoed
Sean Lengell, staff writer, 6/22/07, The Washington Times, “House overturns aid ban for groups offering abortions”
The House yesterday narrowly approved a measure to reverse a 23-year-old U.S. policy against providing foreign-aid grants for contraception to groups that also offer abortions abroad.
The amendment to the 2008 State Department appropriations bill, sponsored by Rep. Nita M. Lowey, New York Democrat, passed 223-201. The vote closely followed party lines, with Democrats supporting the amendment by 207-24, and Republicans opposed by 177-16.
President Bush has promised to veto the amendment, which was attached to the $34 billion bill that pays for State Department operations and foreign aid for fiscal 2008.
The legislation seeks to overturn a policy initiated by President Reagan that bars any assistance to organizations that perform or promote abortion abroad as a method of family planning. The policy is often referred to as the "Mexico City Policy" after the population conference where Mr. Reagan announced it in 1984.
Democrats have complained the policy has caused a significant shortage of contraceptives in poor countries; Republicans say Mrs. Lowey's amendment will lead to abortions in foreign countries at U.S. taxpayers' expense.
"We cannot reduce abortions without contraception," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Democrat.
Mrs. Lowey said that by providing easier access to contraceptives, her legislation would help reduce abortions, unintended pregnancies, the spread of HIV and "save the lives of mothers."
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Thus the plan:
The United States federal government should substantially increase its support of family planning programs in Sub Saharan Africa that provide abortion services.
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Contention 2 is Harms
Advantage 1 is Free Speech
THE GLOBAL GAG RULE PROHIBITS FREE SPEECH, DENIES WOMEN THE RIGIHT TO ABORTION, AND HURTS PROMOTION OF THE U.S. DEMOCRACY MODEL
Barbara Boxer, US Senator, 05-05-’05, Speech [http://boxer.senate.gov/senate/20050405_print.cfm]
Mr. President, today I'm offering an amendment to overturn the so-called Mexico City Policy which undermines some of our country's most important values and goals. The Mexico City Policy is also known as the Global Gag Rule. And I will explain exactly what it does in a moment.
Most of my colleagues know the history of this policy. It was named the "Mexico City Policy" because that's where it was announced in 1984. But it is also known, as I said, as the Global Gag Rule because that's exactly what it does. It gags international organizations that receive USAID family planning funds.
What does that mean? It means, for example, that a family planning clinic in Nepal that receives USAID funding is prohibited from using the clinic's own funds to provide, advocate for, or even talk about abortion to the women they serve - even talk to a woman about her options.
Now, we could debate that, but I'm not going to debate that. What I am going to debate is why the greatest, freest country in the world, the United States of America, would put a Global Gag Rule -- put a tape over the mouths of organizations who are trying to help the women in their country if they use their own funds, not U.S. funds, but their own funds for those purposes.
I cannot understand for the life of me how we can in good faith, as the leading democracy in the world, sending our troops abroad, and they are dying every day for freedom of speech and the kind of Constitution we hope they will have -- how we could put a Global Gag Rule on those organizations, when in this country you couldn't even consider it for two seconds because it would be completely unconstitutional
My friends, this is a free country. We are proud of the fact that it is free. We are proud of the fact that we don't tell our citizens what they can think, what they can say if it's on their own dime. But yet abroad, in some of the poorest countries in the world, we are saying, "If you want a penny of federal funds, USAID or the like, you cannot use your funds in any way you would like. We're telling family clinics who are out there in the toughest of circumstances -- treating women in the direst poverty situations -- we're telling them that they are gagged if they want to receive any U.S. funds.
I would say that this Global Gag Rule is not fair. We are a country that believes in fundamental fairness, and yet this Global Gag Rule tells foreign, non-governmental organizations -- these are people out there working in the toughest circumstance -- how they should spend their own money. For example, it tells clinics they can't use their own money to help a woman in deep despair who comes in with a serious problem, an unintended pregnancy, perhaps even forcedn her. It tells the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations, they can't use their own funds, they can't even advocate for the laws.
Let's say for example there's a law on the books in one of these poor countries that says if you're raped or you are a victim of incest, you cannot have an abortion. And in this country, we changed that. If you are a victim of rape or incest, we say federal funds can be used to help you. Let's say there's a country that has a total restriction, even if you are raped or there's incest involved, and the non-governmental entity is trying to change that in their country. Under the Global Gag Rule we would say, you would lose all of your federal dollars if you advocate to change those, what I would call, ignorant laws.
It tells other countries, this Global Gag Rule, that you can't even tell a woman who comes before you what her options could be, even if the woman asks, "What can I do?" You cannot tell them. In our country, that would be illegal, unconstitutional. But no, we put this on the poorest nations of the world. That's not Uncle Sam. That's Imperial Sam, and none of us wants to be imperial. At least that's my impression. We want to be democratic. But we're not acting in a democratic fashion when we have this double standard around the world.
We believe here in freedom of speech, and yet the Global Gag Rule tells foreign, non-governmental organizations they cannot in any way express an opinion on this subject without losing their funds. We don't tell United States of America organizations what they can say and not say in this country, even if we find it offensive, there's a lot of organizations that I find, gee, I think we'd be better off without them. I don't think their advocacy is right. But I have no right as a United States Senator to tell any organization in America, "You know, I'm tired of hearing what you're saying. Don't say it anymore." Because if I tried to stop them here, I would be ruled out of order, unconstitutional, and that would be the right thing. But yet we do it to nongovernmental organizations.
Some of us in this chamber just came back from Iraq. I was one of those people. And we saw the unimaginable challenges facing our soldiers, government officials, and the Iraqis themselves. As they struggle to deal with a very dangerous insurgency in that country. Our soldiers are putting their lives on the line so that the Iiraqis have a chance to live in freedom -- to live in freedom. And one of the foremost freedoms in our country that we wish for other people is freedom of speech. Government will not interfere with you no matter what you say as long as you're not hurting anybody or inciting anybody. You can hold an opinion. That's why our soldiers are over there, fighting so that the Iraqi people can write a constitution that gives them the same freedoms we have here.
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We heard the Iraqis say -- they told us, the up-and-coming leaders -- "We read your constitution. We read your history. We know about your filibuster and how it protects minority rights." These are the Iraqis. We heard our soldiers say they're willing to risk their lives so the Iraqis can have freedom. Well, that includes freedom of speech. But yet we take away the freedom of non-governmental organizations to tell the truth to the women who may come before them seeking help on a reproductive freedom.
Our policy should be a model for the world. But the Gag Rule, that's a bad signal. It enforces a dangerous code of silence. It tells people, if the government in power doesn't agree with you, then put a gag over your mouth and just suck it up and don't tell the truth about how you feel and keep vital information from the women you are serving.
You know, whether you're pro-choice, anti-choice, it has nothing to do with it. It's a question of freedom of speech. And I would hope that regardless of our feeling on the issue of choice, regardless of how we come down, we would agree that it is fair to have a debate about it. I may not like to hear your
opinion. If I don't agree with you, it may be hard for me to handle. But that's part of this great country. We have to listen to each other, we have to debate, and we have to respect each other's views, but you don't respect a view --
My friends, this is a radical thing we're dealing with. Because when you tell agencies they have to make a deal with the devil, take money and then be gagged, many of them will say, "I don't want your money. I would rather be able to advocate." And if they don't take the money, then they're in a terrible circumstance because they've got to lay off people who would go out and prevent young women, they're preventing young women from family planning. And when those young women in the poorest of the poorest nations are desperate, unfortunately, they may seek what we called here when abortion was illegal, back-alley abortions, and women die. And many women die. Thousands and tens of thousands every year across this globe because of illegal abortion.
I believe very much that family planning is the answer. It can bring us all together whether we believe in a woman's right to choose or we believe the government should be involved in it and tell a woman -- and tell a family -- how to live their life. Regardless of what side you are on. My goodness, family planning ought to bring us together, because for those of us who believe abortion should be safe, legal and rare, the way to get to that place is to have adequate family planning. And for those who believe the government should jail women and jail doctors who have abortions and give abortions, then we should have family planning to have fewer abortions.
A person cannot even speak as a community member or a parent because how can you differentiate between an individual or the fact that they are an employee of this non-governmental organization. The point being made here is, here is someone being seen in the clinic, the tragedy of one man impregnating three girls in a school, and feels that he or she can't speak out in their capacity as an individual citizen because they work for a non-governmental organization. Then that organization will be forced to give up its funding.
This is a very bad policy.
I don't want to see us continue this Global Gag Rule. It is hurting the very people we say we care about, the poorest of the poor, the women, the girls, the victims of rape, the victims of incest.
Basically, what we're saying in our amendment is we believe in human rights. We believe in freedom of speech. We believe other countries should have the same freedoms that we have in this country. And if we can't gag people in this country, let's not do it abroad just because we can. Almost 60 years ago in the dark shadows of World War II, it was our country that championed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to set a standard for human rights all over the world. This is what that declaration said: The advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people."
We are on the side of people who are evil, and that is wrong. And that is not what our government ought to be doing. The aspirations of our country and of our people should be reflected in our policies, and that's why I will urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do what they have done over and over again and stand up and be counted on the side of freedom and justice,... yeah, and the American Way. Because it is the American Way to allow freedom and justice and to allow people, even when we don't agree with them, to take their complaints and their points of view to their governments. That's what our soldiers are fighting for and dying for in Iraq,. And yet, with this policy, we stand on the side of tyranny.
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS NECESSARY FOR DEMOCRACY PROMOMTION IN AFRICA
Afrobarometer; produced collaboratively by social scientists from various African countries, coordinated
by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), and Michigan State University (MSU); 07/’03 [http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfrobriefNo7.pdf]
Africans value freedom of speech. In Afrobarometer* surveys in a dozen African countries, people say that democracy requires that citizens are able to criticize the performance of governments. It seems reasonable to suppose that the liberty of individuals to express themselves evolves together with the emergence of a free press. This connection raises important questions. Does exposure to a plural mass media – or to other, informal modes of communication – promote popular democratic values? What happens to such values when governments control the media of mass communications? Are ordinary Africans – or the opinion leaders among them – willing to stand up to defend press freedom? After documenting relevant facts about public opinion and media exposure, this briefing paper offers answers to these questions. Africans associate democracy with free speech. As shown in Afrobarometer Briefing Paper No. 1, Africans associate democracy with freedom. When asked, “what does democracy mean to you?” they most frequently cite civil and political liberties (40 percent of all responses) rather than popular participation in decision-making (16 percent), regular multiparty elections (10 percent), or socioeconomic development (4 percent). After freedom in general, the respondents to Afrobarometer surveys emphasize rights of expression, including freedoms of conscience, speech and the press (43 percent of all liberties mentioned) (see Figure 1). And three quarters (76 percent) agree that a citizen’s freedom to criticize the government is “important” or “essential” for a society to be called democratic. We use this indicator to capture popular commitments to free speech throughout this paper. So defined, free speech is valued most highly in Botswana and Nigeria (by 85 and 83 percent of adults), but less so in Namibia and Lesotho (67 and 52 percent, respectively). We interpret these results to mean that a majority of Africans across the continent rejects the culture of silence associated with authoritarian rule. Instead, they welcome new opportunities to speak out on political issues.
THE GAG RULE UNDERMINES DEMOCRACY PROMOTION – IT RESTRICTS THE FREEDOM TO ENGAGE IN PUBLIC POLICY DEBATES BASED ON ABORTION
POPULATION ACTION INTERNATIONAL, 2006
(“How the Global Gag Rule Undermines U.S. Foreign Policy and Harms Women’s Health,” 2006, http://66.39.133.128/resources/factsheets/factsheet_5.htm, google , accessed on 7/19/07)
The gag rule undermines U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world. It is called a “gag” rule because it stifles public debate on abortion-related issues, requiring private organizations overseas to choose between continuing their non-U.S. funded efforts to change public policy around abortion in their own countries, or receiving U.S. family planning funds. Restricting their freedom to engage in public policy debates undermines a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy – the promotion of democracy abroad – and its core principle of free and open debate.
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Democracy key to African stability
Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, 1998, Hoover Digest, http://www.hooverdigest.org/983/diamond.html
The common root cause of economic decay, state collapse, ethnic violence, civil war, and humanitarian disaster in Africa is bad, abusive governance. Because most states lack any semblance of a rule of law and norms of accountability that bind the conduct of those in government, their societies have fallen prey to massive corruption, nepotism, and the personal whims of a tiny ruling elite.
The only real antidote to this decay is a constitutional framework that facilitates the limitation, separation, devolution, and sharing of power so that each group can have a stake in the system while checking the ruling elite and one another. In essence, this means a democratic political system, to one degree or another.
Given Africa’s authoritarian history, many changes in beliefs and institutions will be necessary for democracy to emerge. A growing segment of African elites and the public realize that every type of dictatorship on the continent has been a disaster. Thus, there is increasing hunger for economic and political freedom and the predictability of a democratic constitution.
In Africa, more than in any other region, the international community has the power to demand more democratic, responsible governance and to support the people and organizations that are pressing for that cause within individual countries. African states are very weak and dependent. For example, 70 percent of Chad’s budget comes from international donors. Even in Nigeria, with annual oil revenues of $8–$10 billion, the regime needs foreign investment and finance and its leaders crave legitimacy and acceptance in the world. Moreover, the personal assets of many corrupt African elites are invested heavily in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Their children attend private schools there, and they want to shop and spend holidays in the Western world. This gives the Western democracies true leverage, if they have the will and vision to exercise it.
There is a new spirit and awareness in Africa today, and some states are beginning to record rapid economic growth as a result. If the structures of democracy and the market become institutionalized in Africa, development will follow and the continuous cycle of violence and misery can be brought to an end.
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DEMOCRACY is at a cross-roads – its spread is key to global stability and human survival
DIAMOND ’95 (Larry, senior fellow @ Hoover, editor Journal of Democracy, co-director of the Int’t Forum for Democratic Studies - National Endowment for Democracy, prof. poli sci and sociology @ Stanford, coordinator Democracy Program of the new Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990’s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives,” Dec., http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/di.htm)
Five years after the collapse of global Communism, two decades since the start of the most sweeping wave of democratic transitions in world history, the new global "order" seems a bundle of contradictions. The Cold War is over, but many argue that a new one--even a "clash of civilizations"--has commenced between militant Islam and the democratic West. The threat of "mutually assured destruction" in nuclear war has ebbed. But rogue states, maniacal tyrants, criminal networks, and apocalyptic cults are all racing to get weapons of mass destruction, and some have already shown their willingness to use them in war or terrorism. In the formal sense of civilian, constitutional, multiparty regimes, there are more democracies in the world than ever before. Yet roughly half of those that have emerged since 1974 are not fully "free," and in a growing number, democracy is eroding and threatening to collapse under the weight of ethnic and religious conflict, secessionist violence, terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, economic disarray, and state decay. Perhaps the sharpest contradiction is that which grips the democratic West, and particularly the United States. Now, when the world is more fluid and volatile politically than at any time since World War II, when an old order has broken down and a new one has yet to be built--when global leadership and vision are most needed--U.S. foreign policy drifts from crisis to crisis, bereft of the clear doctrine and bipartisan consensus that underpinned the nation's global leadership in previous eras. Now, when new threats are rising and chaos looms on many fronts, the U.S. government is mired in debt, its foreign operations are being cut back sharply, and doubt grows both at home and abroad that the United States has "any purpose in the world beyond promoting its own interests."1 Public support for "protecting and defending human rights in other countries" is down 24 percent since 1990. Already-modest support for "helping to bring a democratic form of government to other nations" has fallen to its lowest level in twenty years. In principle, Americans continue to support international engagement as much as ever, but they increasingly fail to see a larger purpose beyond protecting narrow security and economic interests.2 With the value of the dollar diminishing and their economic future in doubt, it is not surprising that Americans are less inclined to support a foreign policy based on generous aims and grand ideals. Too often missing from the public debate, however, is an appreciation for how "hard" security and economic interests are inextricably, if often subtly, linked to the pursuit of liberal internationalist ideals. Throughout this century, and in some respects since its founding, American democracy has seen the promotion of democracy and freedom in other countries as part of its unique identity and purpose, but also as crucial to its national security and ultimately to the protection of its own liberty.3 Now more than ever, as borders become more porous and people, technologies, ideas, and weapons cascade across them, the safety and well-being of Americans--and Europeans, and Japanese, and Australians--is bound up with the nature of political order in less established polities. In this period of drift and doubt, it is important for Americans, and their allies among the industrialized democracies, to ask hard questions. What are the threats to our national security and economic well-being in the coming years? What must we do--and spend--globally in the coming years to defend our interests? How do those interests relate to our values as a people and society
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AFRICAN INSTABILITY WILL LEAD TO A NUCLEAR WAR
Jeffrey Deutsch, founder of the Rabid Tiger Project, a political risk consulting and related research firm, 11-18-02, [http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html]
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown.
Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect - not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you.
Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help - financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
Asia is a close second, due to the competition of major powers. For example, in an Indo-Paki confrontation, China may be tempted to side with Pakistan, since China and India are major nuclear powers sharing a long border. However, the Asian powers are basically stable internally, at least for now.
The things to watch for are domestic economic and political instability in a nuclear power, the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries and new national antagonisms and great-power ties either weak or nonexistent enough to enable opportunistic alliances and destabilization, or strong enough that the great powers feel compelled to follow their client states.
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SUPRESSION OF FREE SPEECH LEADS TO ETHNIC CONFLICT, WAR, AND GENOCIDE
Frances D’Souza, Executive Director of Article 19, the International Centre Against Censorship, 05-25-’96, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy Subcommittee on Human Rights
In the absence of freedom of expression which in-cludes a free and independent media, it is impossible to protect other rights, including the right to life. Once governments are able to draw a cloak of secrecy over their actions and to remain unaccountable for their actions then massive human rights violations can, and do, take place. For this reason alone the right to freedom of expression, specifically protected in the major international human rights treaties, must be considered to be a primary right. It is significant that one of the first indications of a government's intention to depart from democratic principles is the ever increasing control of information by means of gagging the media, and preventing the freeflow of information from abroad. At one end of the spectrum there are supposedly minor infringements of this fundamental right which occur daily in Western democracies and would include abuse of national security laws to prevent the publication of information which might be embarrassing to a given government: at the other end of the scale are the regimes of terror which employ the most brutal moves to suppress opposition, information and even the freedom to exercise religious beliefs. It has been argued, and will undoubtedly be discussed at this Hearing, that in the absence of free speech and an independent media, it is relatively easy for governments to capture, as it were, the media and to fashion them into instruments of propaganda, for the promotion of ethnic conflict, war and genocide.
To some the right to free speech may appear to be one of the fringe human rights, especially when compared to such violations as torture and extra-judicial killings. It is also sometimes difficult to dissuade the general public that censorship, generally assumed to be something to do with banning obscene books or magazines, is no bad thing! It requires a recognition of some of the fundamental principles of democracy to understand why censorship is so immensely dangerous. The conditon of democracy is that people are able to make choices about a wide variety of issues which affect their lives, including what they wish to see, read, hear or discuss. While this may seem a somewhat luxurious distinction preoccupying, perhaps, wealthy Western democracies, it is a comparatively short distance between government censorship of an offensive book to the silencing of political dissidents. And the distance between such silencing and the use of violence to suppress a growing political philosophy which a government finds inconvenient is even shorter. Censorship tends to have small beginnings and to grow rapidly. Allowing a government to have the power to deny people information, however trivial, not only sets in place laws and procedures which can and will be used by those in authority against those with less authority, but it also denies people the information which they must have in order to monitor their governments actions and to ensure accountability.
There have been dramatic and terrible examples of the role that censorship has played in international politics in the last few years: to name but a few, the extent to which the media in the republics of former Yugoslavia were manipulated by government for purposes of propaganda; the violent role played by the government associated radio in Rwanda which incited citizens to kill each other in the name of ethnic purity and the continuing threat of murder issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran against a citizen of another country for having written a book which displeased them.
There are undoubted connections between access to information, or rather the lack of it, and war, as indeed there are between poverty, the right to freedom of expression and development. One can argue that democracy aims to increase participation in political and other decision-making at all levels. In this sense democracy empowers people. The poor are denied access to information on decisions which deeply affect their lives, are thus powerless and have no voice; the poor are not able to have influence over their own lives, let alone other aspect of society. Because of this essential powerlessness, the poor are unable to influence the ruling elite in whose interests it may be to initiate conflict and wars in order to consolidate their own power and position.
Of the 126 developing countries listed in the 1993 Human Development Report, war was ongoing in 30 countries and severe civil conflict in a further 33 countries. Of the total 63 countries in conflict, 55 are towards the bottom scale of the human development index which is an indicator of poverty. There seems to be no doubt that there is a clear association between poverty and war. It is reasonably safe to assume that the vast majority of people do not ever welcome war. They are normally coerced, more often than not by propaganda, into fear, extreme nationalist sentiments and war by their governments. If the majority of people had a democratic voice they would undoubtedly object to war. But voices are silenced. Thus, the freedom to express one's views and to challenge government decisions and to insist upon political rather than violent solutions, are necessary aspects of democracy which can, and do, avert war.
Government sponsored propaganda in Rwanda, as in former Yugoslavia, succeeded because there weren't the means to challenge it. One has therefore to conclude that it is impossible for a particular government to wage war in the absence of a compliant media willing to indulge in government propaganda. This is because the government needs civilians to fight wars for them and also because the media is needed to re-inforce government policies and intentions at every turn.
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Advantage 2 is Overpopulation
Africa is experiencing extremely high growth rates
Erik Curren, Editor of Conserve Magazine, 10/23/06, Nabeepchen “The population bomb is ticking again"
Scenarios are dire, but solutions may be surprisingly easy”
“Yet, today around the world you still have huge and growing problems in terms of resource scarcity, water, arable crop land, forests and other resources. And that’s only going to get much, much worse if we don’t do more.”
Like many experts on population issues, Preston is less concerned with the U.S. than with developing nations, who are the main contributors to a runaway world population of 6.5 billion.
America reaching 300 million is “indicative of a much bigger story in the developing world,” Preston says. “Here we’re talking about sustainable development, sprawl, habitat loss, and other problems. But if you look at the developing world, the situation is much more serious. In Uganda or Ethiopia for example populations are doubling every 30 years. They already have huge issues with hunger and famine and are already dependent on food aid from foreign donors including the U.S.”
“Imagine if we were talking about the likelihood that our population would jump to 600 million in 30 to 40 years. There would be a strong sense that this was a very grave problem. People would term it a crisis or a catastrophe. But that’s the reality in some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, it’s not being talked about much here and some easy, popular programs to ease this crisis are being neglected by the U.S. and other rich countries.”
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Despite effectiveness, the US does not support Family Planning
Erik Curren, Editor of Conserve Magazine, 10/23/06, Nabeepchen “The population bomb is ticking again"
But this kind of compassion-fatigue is unnecessary. The most effective population control measure, family planning, is many times cheaper than any military option. It is even cheaper than famine relief.
Family planning has been so effective that, because of efforts to educate women and couples about contraception so that they can choose to have the number of kids they want at the time they want them, birth rates have fallen in many developing nations. In Mexico and Egypt, for example, birth rates have been halved in the last 35 years, according to Preston.
Yet, despite its proved effectiveness, family planning has dropped to a small percentage of the U.S. foreign aid budget. “U.S. taxpayers spend $1 billion on food aid yearly. Last year in Ethiopia alone we spent more on food aid than we did on family planning across the planet,” Preston says.
Since it came into office, the Bush Administration has cut family-planning funding significantly. Population experts like Preston say that this is not because family planning doesn’t work – it does – or that people in developing countries don’t want contraceptives – they do, even in strongly Catholic or Muslim nations – but for domestic political reasons.
Some opponents of abortion also oppose contraception, and since the White House has been eager to obtain the support of its religious base, it has tried to distance itself from birth control. But since Americans overwhelmingly support access to contraception – 81 percent in a Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive poll from last year – the administration has hesitated to declare open war on birth control. Instead, it has quietly cut funding to support family-planning programs abroad.
“This administration is in thrall to a domestic political base that is fundamentally opposed to the right of women to use contraceptives,” said Brian Dixon, director of government relations at another advocacy group, Population Connection.
“One of the first things that this president did in 2001 was to implement a global gag-rule, to cut off U.S. aid to any family-planning providers around the world who had any connection to abortion.”
The gag-rule said that if health-care providers wanted to receive U.S. funds, then they couldn’t even counsel patients on abortion or bring it up as an option. Because many doctors, nurses and medical aides were not willing to play by Washington’s new restrictions, they lost funding.
“The rule caused clinics to close in Zambia and Kenya and it caused the laying off of healthcare staff. It has also led to a shortage of contraceptives in Ethiopia. But the gag-rule has had no impact on abortion, except maybe to increase it, because we’ve cut off access to contraception. The U.S. no longer contributes to the UN Population Fund because the President refuses to release the funds that Congress has appropriated for it. The target in all of these cases is contraceptives.”
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Women in Africa want more access to contraceptives to improve quality of life and cannot get them
Erik Curren, Editor of Conserve Magazine, 10/23/06, Nabeepchen “The population bomb is ticking again"
Though the effects of overpopulation worldwide and even in the U.S. could be horrific – imagine Blade Runner, Escape from New York or your favorite sci-fi vision of an overcrowded apocalypse – Dixon says that the main solution, family planning, is relatively simple to implement.
“The real cause for hope is that we know how to do this. There’s no need to make huge sacrifices. We’re giving people the tools to make decisions about their lives. Not only does it help the global picture but it helps individual families. Women can become part of their communities through work. Kids can go to school. Countries can catch up. It allows nations to start improving the quality of life for their people.
“Family planning is a relatively simple and cheap solution. That’s very hopeful. We just need the political will. We don’t need to find new technologies and complicated solutions. It’s really about giving people what they already want.”
Surveys consistently show that couples in developing nations want more access to birth control than they have now.
Contraceptives are the only way to slow down overpopulation
Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor, 1/31/07, The Independent (London) “Birth rates 'must be curbed to win war on global poverty” Lexis
The earth's population will approach an unsustainable total of 10.5 billion unless contraception is put back at the top of the agenda for international efforts to alleviate global poverty. A report by MPs released today challenges world leaders to put the contraceptive pill and the condom at the centre of their efforts to alleviate global poverty, tackle starvation and even help to avert global warming.
Gordon Brown has staked his future premiership on leading the world in tackling global poverty. And the report, by the all-party parliamentary group on population, development and reproductive growth, makes the point that the population surge presents a massive stumbling block for his ambition.
Since the 1970s, when coercion was used in India and China, family planning has become a dirty word among environmental and hunger campaigners. But the report warns that eight UN targets for reducing poverty in the developing world will be missed unless world leaders do more to stop the soaring birth rates.
The group says the UK will have to take on the religious ideology of the neoconservatives in the White House against contraception. The MPs call for an end to the so-called "global gag rule", that was reintroduced by President George Bush.
It has put non-governmental organisations outside the US "in an untenable position" and forced them to choose between carrying out their work safeguarding the health and rights of women or losing their funding from the US. The Labour MP Christine McCafferty, who chairs the group, said there would be a 50 per cent rise in the world's population by 2050 unless family planning was made more freely available in the developing world, where 99 per cent of the growth is expected to occur. The report says there is "overwhelming" evidence that the UN's millennium development goals will be missed if population growth is not curbed. The goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating HIV/Aids and ensuring environmental sustainability.
The report carries a graph illustrating the "bulge" in population growth in developing countries since the 1950s, while the birth rate in developed countries has stagnated. The worst-case scenario predicts that unless it is checked the earth's population could soar out of control to more than 36 billion over the next 300 years.
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Overpopulation wipes out economies, increases demands for resources, leads to genocide and conflict, and destroys the environment
Carol A. Kates, Professor of Philosophy at Ithaca College, 2004, Optimum Population Trust "Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation," http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/philrel/replib.pdf
The demand for some of the basic commodities on which the MDGs rely – notably food and water – is elastic if population is growing. The capacity of the environment to supply these commodities is largely inelastic. The capacity of the environment to supply these basic commodities is itself impaired by continuing population growth and the increased demand that goes with it. This is the case, for example, with soil erosion, over-abstraction of water, over-irrigation and salinisation of soil etc. As the UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 noted: “Progress has been made against hunger, but slow growth of agricultural output and expanding populations [italics added] have led to setbacks in some regions.” Particularly in conditions of increasing resource scarcity, population growth may undermine economic growth, and therefore the capacity to realise many of the MDGs that are less directly dependent on the environment – for instance, those involving education and health. It thus maintains poverty in many parts of the world. It is difficult for a resource-poor country with rapid population growth to increase its economic 'cake', even if the cake is growing, because each slice is rapidly having to be divided between ever more individuals. An increase in population will wipe out gains faster than they can be made, whether in agriculture, education, literacy or healthcare. A recent Minister of Health in Morocco maintained that every year his country needed to build nine hospitals, 8,500 classrooms and 150,000 houses - and create 280,000 jobs - just to keep up with population growth. China’s (controversial) population policies have meant that there are now an estimated 400 million fewer Chinese than there would otherwise would have been. According to Zhang Weiqing, of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, slower population growth has “effectively alleviated the imbalance between population and economic resources and tensions between population and the environment". Trade-offs between rapid population growth and development are visible in many African countries. In some cases population growth creates conflict which has proved a potent ingredient in delaying progress towards the MDGs. This was the case in Rwanda in the 1990s where demographers warned repeatedly that rising population, causing diminishing access to land, was creating conditions ripe for violence. Many experts believe the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s was therefore a consequence of population growth (see Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005) but population is also an ingredient in most resource-based conflicts – it is an integral part of the supply (resource) and demand (people) equation. Water conflicts, which it is widely predicted will escalate this century, directly affect MDGs and cannot be divorced from their population component. This is not least because the population (demand) component is in many cases the only one to have changed: the water (supply) component remains broadly the same. The United Nations issued a report to mark World Water Day 2002 which said that two in three people will face water shortages by 2025 if the world continues consuming water at the same rate. It warns of fierce competition for water supplies. The report blames mismanagement of water, population growth and changing weather patterns. Global water-use has at least doubled since 1960, in line with population increase. Again, the UN’s 2005 report on the MDGs noted: “In sub-Saharan Africa, where 42 per cent of the population is still unserved, the obstacles to progress [on access to drinking water], which include conflict, political instability and low priority assigned to investments in water and sanitation, are especially daunting given high population growth rates.” [italics added]. The fundamental trade-offs cited can be masked and modified by technologies but these often have a limited lifespan and limited effects: one of the lessons of recent years is that environmental or resource-use efficiencies tend to be “drowned out” by increases in quantitative demand. They also carry their own costs, both economic and environmental, which not only damage the “servicing” capacity of the environment but divert social and economic resources away from the realisation of the MDGs. The Green Revolution, for example, provided an increase in crop productivity at the expense of greater use of chemicals and water. Many comparable innovations have had the effect of rebalancing developing country economies away from basic need fulfilment and damaging the environment on which the people most dependent on the MDGs rely. These factors apply globally and locally. Ecological footprint studies show that the planet is currently outstripping its biocapacity by 20 per cent ( WWF/UNEP, Living Planet Report, 2004) and that this ecological overshoot is set to grow with rising population and consumption. Population is singled out in the Living Planet Report as one of the factors responsible for this overshoot. The inequities of the global economy camouflage this global overshoot for those living in the developed world but in the developing world the effects are exposed to view, with huge impacts on poverty, hunger, water availability and so on. The uneven distribution of the causes and effects of climate change exacerbate such discrepancies, adding to the failure of local environments to support their local populations. So lack of progress against MDGs in the developing world reflect the failure of local biocapacity to match local population demands magnified by the failure of global biocapacity to meet global population demands. This global failure then acts via the distorting mechanism of the global economy to aggravate local biocapacity failures - by appropriating local resources. This is often the case, for example, with export cash crops and with fisheries. Cash crops appropriate local resources (water, land, energy) for foreign consumption, diverting them from the satisfaction of basic needs. Fisheries involve the appropriation by foreign fleets of local fishing stocks previously supplying direct local needs. In both cases the fundamental cause is ecological overshoot, caused by the mismatch between environmental carrying capacity and population. Ecological footprinting is one way of measuring overshoot. This shows, for example, that if the whole world lived at UK standards, we would require around two more planets to sustain the current population. The UK population , in other words, is “too big” for its current biocapacity; however, the ecological “overdraft” or debt thus created is experienced in the developing world. In that sense, the overpopulation of the UK, and the developed world generally, bears some responsibility for the lack of progress towards meeting the MDGs. Another way of measuring overshoot is to look at its planetary symptoms – climate change, overfishing, food and cropland limits, predicted energy (notably oil) shortages, loss of habitats, species and ecosystems. All these come under the broad heading of “environmental sustainability”, all impact disproportionately on those most reliant on the MDGs and all have a mismatch between carrying capacity and human population as possibly their most crucial ingredient. One of the lessons of history is that human populations have tended to expand up to their (usually inaccurately) perceived limits, which then render them vulnerable to unforeseen environmental or climate change. Many experts now predict that oil supplies will peak in the next few years and that one consequence will be, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, “an enormous surplus population.” The nature of the global economy means that this, again, is likely to impact most seriously on the poorest people and least developed countries.
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Resource Wars will go nuclear and lead to extinction
Stephen Lendman, Host of “The Micro Effect”, 6/6/07, CounterCurrents.Org “Resource Wars, Can we Survive Them?” http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman060607.htm
With the world's energy supplies finite, the US heavily dependent on imports, and "peak oil" near or approaching, "security" for America means assuring a sustainable supply of what we can't do without. It includes waging wars to get it, protect it, and defend the maritime trade routes over which it travels. That means energy's partnered with predatory New World Order globalization, militarism, wars, ecological recklessness, and now an extremist US administration willing to risk Armageddon for world dominance. Central to its plan is first controlling essential resources everywhere, at any cost, starting with oil and where most of it is located in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The new "Great Game's" begun, but this time the stakes are greater than ever as explained above. The old one lasted nearly 100 years pitting the British empire against Tsarist Russia when the issue wasn't oil. This time, it's the US with help from Israel, Britain, the West, and satellite states like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan challenging Russia and China with today's weapons and technology on both sides making earlier ones look like toys. At stake is more than oil. It's planet earth with survival of all life on it issue number one twice over.
Resources and wars for them means militarism is increasing, peace declining, and the planet's ability to sustain life front and center, if anyone's paying attention. hey'd better be because beyond the point of no return, there's no second chanceT the way Einstein explained after the atom was split. His famous quote on future wars was : "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Under a worst case scenario, it's more dire than that. There may be nothing left but resilient beetles and bacteria in the wake of a nuclear holocaust meaning even a new stone age is way in the future, if at all. The threat is real and once nearly happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. We later learned a miracle saved us at the 40th anniversary October, 2002 summit meeting in Havana attended by the US and Russia along with host country Cuba. For the first time, we were told how close we came to nuclear Armageddon. Devastation was avoided only because Soviet submarine captain Vasily Arkhipov countermanded his order to fire nuclear-tipped torpedos when Russian submarines were attacked by US destroyers near Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Had he done it, only our imagination can speculate what might have followed and whether planet earth, or at least a big part of it, would have survived.
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Advantage 3 is Public Health Diplomacy
THE GLOBAL GAG RULE IS DESTROYING THE UNITED STATE’S INTERNATIONAL IMAGE
Christopher Marquis, Writer of the New York Times, 06-21-’04, New York Times, “US Is Accused of Trying to Isolate UN Population Unit,” Lexis Nexis
The Bush administration, which cut off its share of financing two years ago to the United Nations agency handling population control, is seeking to isolate the agency from groups that work with it in China and elsewhere, United Nations officials and diplomats say.
Pressed by opponents of abortion, the administration withdrew its support from a major international conference on health issues this month and has privately warned other groups, like Unicef, that address health issues that their financing could be jeopardized if they insist on working with the agency, the United Nations Population Fund.
The administration also has indicated that it hopes to persuade the United Nations' Latin American caucus to back away from a common position on population and development that was adopted in Santiago, -Chile, in March on the grounds that the document's discussion of reproductive rights could be interpreted as promoting abortion.
The actions are part of an administration effort to ensure that international agencies and private groups do not promote abortions overseas. In its first days in office, the Bush administration reintroduced the Reagan-era that critics call the ''global gag rule,'' which denies money to groups that even discuss abortion as an option, except in cases that threaten life or involve rape or incest.
The Population Fund, known as Unfpa, has long been a favorite target of abortion opponents in Congress and in religious-based organizations, who contend that it assists in coercive abortions in China. The critics prevented American financing of the fund for most of the last two decades, and they have now set their sights on curbing its operations with other United Nations agencies.
The administration's position has frustrated some United Nations officials and family planning advocates, who have complained that advances in education and awareness on reproductive issues are being undermined by the United States, where abortion is legal. Those critics, most of whom spoke anonymously because the United States government is the leading contributor to their agencies, charged that the administration was pandering to conservative supporters, and said that doing so placed the United States in alliance with tradition-bound Islamic countries and the Holy See.
Last year, the State Department cut financing to Marie Stopes International, a British charity involved in AIDS programs, because it worked with the Population Fund in China.
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Plan key to public health diplomacy
Solomon R. Benatar and Renée C. Fox, Professor of Medicine and Bioethics @ University of Cape Town and Professor of Sociology and Bioethics @ University of Pennsylvania, “Meeting Threats to Global Health: A call for American leadership,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 48.3 (2005) 344-361//Project Muse
Self-Interest as a Force for Improving Global Health - Just as America has sought widespread solidarity in its campaign against terrorism, so is it now in America's best interests to go beyond merely expressing concern about global health. It should set the example of providing solidarity with [End Page 356] others in their quest for access to the basic requirements for decent and healthy living that would give hope for their futures. In this sphere, self-interest and a globally responsive and responsible purview coincide. A glimmer that such thinking could increasingly impact on action is evident in the report from the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations and the Milbank Memorial Fund, outlining the importance of health to American foreign policy (Kassalow 2001). American economist Jeffrey Sach's work on the Commission on Macroeconomics for Health, the inauguration of a Global Health Fund, and President Bush's announcement that the United States will increase its annual development aid from $10 billion to $15 billion—while as yet only partially realized promises—are manifestations of both a deeper understanding of the importance of global health and an acknowledgement of the moral responsibility of developed nations to address this constructively (Friedman 2002; Global Fund 2002/3; WHO 2001). For the best American values—embracing both individual freedom and community responsibility—to become globally pervasive and sustainable, it will be necessary for the power of moral example and long-term national interest to complement economic and military power. Unless the world's most powerful country moves towards showing concern for the lives, health, and well-being of the underprivileged, both within its own borders and beyond, it is likely that the lives of the privileged in America and elsewhere will be progressively devalued by those who have little to lose (Nye 2002). The war on Iraq has severely damaged the reputation of the United States as a source of admired values and commitment to human well-being. It has also reduced the potential for the best of American values to be widely emulated (Soros 2004). The challenge of improving health for millions of people provides a window of opportunity to reclaim lost ground for the benefit of Americans and others. The vast gap between the 2004 U.S. military expenditure of $450 billion and official development assistance of only $15 billion illustrates the potential for innovative global health initiatives led by the United States (Sachs 2004). The Role of the American Medical Profession - In our view, it is both crucial and obligatory for the American medical profession to play a central role in the transformation of thought and action that would enable the United States to assume symbolic and substantive leadership in meeting present challenges to global health. As economist Jeffrey Sachs (2004) has stated: "For the first time in decades, we must strive to understand problems—tropical diseases, malnutrition, and the like—[that] are urgent concerns of people abroad. In the case of a superpower ignorance is not bliss; it is a threat to Americans and to humanity." The members of the American medical profession have the trained competence to understand these problems. What is more, as [End Page 357] physicians, they have a collective professional responsibility to be the "conscience of society" in matters that affect and are affected by health and illness. There are those both within and outside the U.S. medical profession who would respond to this exhortation with the claim that at this historical juncture, individually and collectively, American physicians do not have sufficient authority to assume the leadership role being asked of them—that they are too demoralized by the barrage of criticism for excessive dominance and autonomy to which they have been subject from the 1970s through the 1990s, and by their struggles to practice, under the current system of managed care, the kind of medicine that meets their standards of clinical and moral excellence. In response to this contention, we join with medical historian Rosemary Stevens in affirming that there are strong reasons to believe that if the profession mobilizes itself organizationally, its role as moral leaders could be effective: The profession has long had an authoritative voice in American culture. . . . Despite the doom and gloom expressed over managed care from the early 1990s to the present, doctors have not lost their normative role in American society. They embody a huge reservoir of goodwill inherited from the past. This is derived in various parts: from long respect of the doctor as healer; from the ideology of medicine as public service and the doctor as hero; from the huge advances of scientific medicine in the 20th century, continuing through promises to the future; from claims for scientific objectivity; from the symbolic value of medicine as culturally suited to other American values . . . and . . . from the sheer visibility of national medical organizations, even in the absence of a unified governmental health policy. (Stevens 2001, pp. 348–49)
Now the new strategy declares that we are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies falling into the hands of the embittered few. Instead of strategic rivalry, "today, the world's great powers find ourselves on the same side united by common dangers of terrorist violence and chaos".
And it is true that America's military power is essential to global stability, and an essential part of the response to terrorism. But the metaphor of war should not blind Americans to the fact that suppressing terrorism will take years of patient unspectacular civilian co-operation with other countries in areas such as intelligence sharing, police work, tracing financial flows, and co-operation among customs officials. The military success in Afghanistan dealt with the easiest part of the problem, the toppling of the weak Taliban government in a poor country. But all the precision bombing destroyed only a small fraction of the al-Qaeda network which retains cells in some 60 countries. And bombing is no answer to the existence of cells in Kuala Lumpur, Hamburg or Detroit. Rather than proving the unilateralists' point, the partial nature of the success in Afghanistan illustrates the continuing need for co-operation. The best response to transnational terrorist networks is networks of cooperating government agencies.
The problem for Americans in the 21st century is that there are more and more things outside the control of even the most powerful state. Although the United States does well on the traditional measures of power, there is a whole new ball game increasingly more going on in the world that those measures fail to capture. The paradox of American power is that world politics is changing in a way that means the strongest power since Rome cannot achieve some of its most crucial international goals acting alone. The US lacks both the international and domestic prerequisites to resolve conflicts that are internal to other societies, and to monitor and control transnational transactions that threaten Americans at home. On many of the key issues today, such as international financial stability, drug smuggling, the spread of diseases or global climate change, military power simply cannot produce success, and its use can sometimes be counterproductive Instead as the largest country, the United States must mobilize international coalitions to address these shared threats and challenges.
The agenda of world politics has become like a three-dimensional chess game in which one can win only by playing vertically as well as horizontally. On the top board of classic interstate military issues, the United States is likely to remain the only superpower for years to come, and it makes sense to speak in traditional terms of unipolarity or hegemony. However, on the middle board of interstate economic issues, the distribution of power is already multipolar The United States cannot obtain the outcomes it wants on trade, anti-trust or financial regulation issues without the co-operation of the European Union, Japan and others. It makes little sense to call this American hegemony. And on the bottom board of transnational issues, power is widely distributed and chaotically organized among state and non-state actors. It makes no sense at all to call this a unipolar world or an American empire. And this is the set of issues that is now intruding into the world of grand strategy as illustrated by Bush's new doctrine. Yet the new unilateralist part of his administration still focuses solely on the top board of classic military solutions. Like children with a hammer, all problems look like nails to them.
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The willingness of other countries to co-operate on the solution of transnational issues depends in part on their own self interest, but also on the attractiveness of American positions. That power to attract and persuade is what I call soft power. It means that others want what you want, and there is less need to use carrots and sticks to make others do what you want. Hard power grows out of a country's military and economic might. Soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, ideals, and policies. Hard power will always remain important in a world of nation states guarding their independence, but soft power will become increasingly important in dealing with the transnational issues that require multilateral cooperation for their solution. Yet a recent Pew Charitable Trust poll finds that American policies have led to lowered favourability ratings for the US over the past two years in 19 of 27 countries, including particularly the Islamic countries so important to the war on terrorism. The new unilateralist wing of the administration is urging policies that squander our soft power.
No large country can afford to be purely multilateralist, and sometimes the United States must take the lead by itself as it did in Afghanistan. And the credible threat of a unilateral option was probably essential to get the UN Security Council to pass resolution 1441 that brought the inspectors back to Iraq. But the US should incline toward multilateralism whenever possible as a way to legitimize its power and to gain broad acceptance of its new strategy. Pre-emption that is legitimized by multilateral sanction is far less costly and a far less dangerous precedent than when we assert that we alone can act as judge, jury and executioner. Granted, multilateralism can be used by smaller states to restrict American freedom of action, but this does not mean that it is not generally in American interests. Learning to listen to others and to define the national interests broadly to include global interests will be crucial to the success of the new strategy and whether others see the American preponderance it proclaims as benign or not.
The challenge for the United States will be to learn how to work with other countries to better control the non-state actors that will increasingly share the stage, with nation-states. President Bush is correct that America will continue to be the only military superpower, and its military strength remains essential for global stability and as part of the response to terrorism. But to successfully implement his new strategy, he will need to pay more attention to soft power and multilateral co-operation than was true of the early stages of his administration.
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Contention 3 is Solvency
Increasing aid reverses the Gag Rule
Feminist Daily News Wire, April 6, 2005, Boxer Amendment to End Global Gag Rule Passes in the Senate
Led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a champion for women's rights, the Senate passed an amendment to a foreign aid bill on Tuesday to overturn the Global Gag Rule. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Boxer and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), was passed 52-46, with eight Republican Senators joining the Democrats. Reuters rreports that the US Senate has repeatedly rejected the dangerous and restrictive policy since it was first imposed by the Reagan Administration in 1984. Though President Clinton rescinded the policy for the eight years of his presidency, President George W. Bush issued an executive order to reinstate the Global Gag rule during his first official day in office in January 2001. The Global Gag Rule is a harmful US foreign policy that bars family planning programs receiving US international aid from using their own monies from separate sources for abortion counseling, advocacy, and referrals. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if it passes, Reuters reports, although the House of Representatives have yet to take up its version of the foreign aid bill. According to the Associated Press, it is unlikely that the bill, which would authorize $34 billion in State Department and foreign aid spending, will pass. No such foreign aid bill has passed since 1985, which results in actual foreign aid to be authorized through separate appropriations bills.
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The gag rule causes deaths overseas, hurts women’s reproductive rights, and suppresses freedom of speech and democracy. The US needs to reclaim its leadership in human rights and remove the gag rule.
Melissa Upreti, legal adviser with the Center for Reproductive Rights' International Legal Program, LL.M from Columbia Law School, Summer / Fall 2003, Women's Rights Law Reporter, “PANEL TWO: The Impact of the "Global Gag Rule" on Women's Reproductive Health Worldwide”, lexis
The third point which I think is very important to understand is that the nature of the abortion debate in most countries across the world is very different from what it is like here in the U.S. In many countries, unsafe abortion is a leading cause of death among pregnant women. In countries like Nepal, Uganda, and Peru, where unsafe abortion is a leading cause of death, the debate on abortion is completely different. It is less political. It is more a matter of life and death; and something like the Global Gag Rule totally ignores that particular fact. The first type of harm that has become visible to some extent is the harm to women's reproductive health. We live in a world where eighty thousand women die annually due to unsafe abortions. NGOs, in countries where abortion [*195] is legal, cannot provide abortions or refer or counsel on abortion. In Nepal, it is estimated that 539 women die from pregnancy-related complications for every 100,000 live births. In the United States, the maternal mortality rate is 7 per 100,000 live births; half of these deaths are due to unsafe abortions. Abortion was decriminalized in Nepal in 2002; however, NGOs receiving USAID funding for family planning programs will not be able to provide abortion counseling or services or make referrals. This will have a devastating effect on women because the government in its policy has clearly stated that the NGO will be the main providers of abortion services because the government does not have enough resources. In Bolivia, the Ministry of Health, which technically is not even covered by the Global Gag Rule, has indicated that it will no longer endorse lifesaving care for women suffering complications from illegal and unsafe abortions because of the Global Gag Rule. The government also has gone to the extent of suspending efforts to permit distribution of emergency contraception because of the Global Gag Rule. This point demonstrates that the Global Gag Rule casts its net very widely; and it does not just implicate abortion, but also has a chilling effect and, as a result, affects a whole host of services. The Global Gag Rule also limits women's access to information. The Global Gag Rule prohibits the distribution of neutral, factual information about abortion, even if the goal is making legal abortions available or preventing women from putting their lives at risk by undergoing unsafe abortions. As expressed in the words of one activist from Senegal, "I think that the Global Gag Rule is shortsighted, created by people sitting in Washington D.C. who cannot see the implications for women and the rest of the world. If it becomes taboo to talk about abortion, abortion will slip even further underground with disastrous implications for women." In Bolivia, where abortion is legal, doctors and healthcare organizations cannot even provide information about abortion to protect a woman's physical health or even provide information that abortion is an option. In South Africa, healthcare organizations cannot engage in public education programs about HIV and AIDS that include the availability of safe and legal abortion as an option for HIV-infected pregnant women. The Global Gag Rule is inherently anti-democratic because it violates the right to free speech. We live in a world where 80,000 women die from unsafe abortions per year. This occurs mostly in countries where abortion is highly restricted or illegal. The Global Gag Rule prevents overseas NGOs from lobbying their own governments to bring about law reform and, as a consequence, to save women's lives. In Peru, the executive director of a U.S.-funded women's rights organization who was invited to Washington, D.C. to speak with the media and U.S. policymakers on the negative effects of the Global Gag Rule, declined to discuss the issue of abortion and its impact on women in Peru. She later revealed that she feared that publicly discussing abortion would jeopardize her U.S. funding, which provides low-income women access to family planning. NGOs experience firsthand the effects of illegal, unsafe abortion; and they are often called upon to participate in debates about abortion law reform. However, the Global Gag Rule forces these NGOs to limit their participation in a democratic process in order to continue to receive funding. Interestingly, the Global Gag Rule does not impose any restrictions on anti-choice speech. Only one viewpoint is restricted and suppressed, that of the NGOs. NGOs that receive funding from the U.S. government have to support and provide counseling that advises women not to have abortions and they must condemn and demonize abortions publicly. In Bolivia, for instance, 390 women per 100,000 live births die from pregnancy-related complications. NGOs that have formed a coalition to press for the liberalization of Bolivia's abortion laws and spread public health awareness were forced to curtail their activities for fear of losing funding for speaking about the issue. In Russia, where most abortions are legal, U.S.-funded NGOs cannot meet with government officials to discuss their concerns regarding the negative health impact of a proposed restrictive abortion law. These examples reflect on the nature of the abortion debate in countries across the world, particularly low income countries, and demonstrate that the right to [*196] abortion is not just about choice, it is about saving women's lives. For millions of women in low income, developing countries, it is a matter of life and death. The Global Gag Rule also affects the ability of U.S.-based NGOs to advocate for safer abortion services and the decriminalization of abortion where it is illegal by making it impossible for overseas NGOs to collaborate with them. The Global Gag Rule undermines the sovereignty of foreign governments because foreign governments are not able to collaborate on abortion-related projects with NGOs receiving U.S. government funding in their country. The Global Gag Rule prevents NGOs from carrying out
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their governments' public policy decisions in countries where abortions are legal, safe, and accessible. The Global Gag Rule not only violates freedom of speech and women's right to safe and legal abortion, but it also violates international commitments to women's reproductive rights. It is discriminatory and a source of violence against women in so far as it compromises their physical and mental well being. The Rule violates the commitments made at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action in Cairo and the 1995 Women's Conference Platform for Action in Beijing, commitments made to ensure post-abortion counseling, education and family planning services that help prevent repeat abortions. It violates the international commitment to reduce recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services, leading to more unwanted pregnancies. The United States government, through the imposition of the Global Gag Rule, has established a double standard for women, because the right to abortion is protected by the United States Constitution; but overseas, there is absolutely no respect for the right to freedom of speech or for the right of a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion, even if it means that she should have to suffer terrible health consequences, or even die. The restriction on overseas NGOs would be totally unconstitutional if imposed on an American NGO, and there is case law to that effect. Some important reactions to the Global Gag Rule across the world include the following: European Parliamentarians have condemned the Global Gag Rule. In March 2001, European Parliamentarians from twenty countries signed a landmark petition condemning the Global Gag Rule. In June of 2002, members of the Dutch, United Kingdom, and Russian Parliaments, and a member of European Parliament spoke before the U.S. Congress on how the Global Gag Rule restricts their foreign aid programs and hinders their democracy-building efforts as well. Rokitsky Rafailovoch, who is a Russian Parliamentarian, emphasized that President Bush must realize his policies are not simply conservative politics. His decisions endanger women's lives, rupture political relationships, and demonstrate how little his administration is willing to do for women's health in this country and abroad. Restrictions on speech is what my country faced under the communist regime and is what we have been trying to overcome this past decade. In June 2001, the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the Global Gag Rule in court because it restricts the Center's right to freedom of speech and it impedes reform of reproductive health laws world-wide, including abortion laws. Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Barbara Lee supported this lawsuit, and the Center also was able to obtain the support of a number of human rights organizations who signed petitions and submitted affidavits. Unfortunately, the Courts here in the U.S. did not see the issue the same way that we do; and they dismissed our case by ruling that any impact on U.S.-based advocates was caused by the independent choice of foreign NGOs to take USAID funds. The assumption that their choice is "independent" could not be further from the truth. The American Bar Association has issued a resolution against the Global Gag Rule saying that: To one seeking either legal or medical counsel, incomplete advice can be worse than no advice at all, misleading consumers into believing that they are receiving all of the information necessary to make informed choices, when, in fact, the advice is skewed toward a particular viewpoint. The prohibition [*197] imposed upon the healthcare professional against supplying complete information may be life-threatening. And this could not be closer to the truth. The American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Nursing Association have also opposed the Global Gag Rule because it directly conflicts with the obligations of medical practitioners; punishing communication between female patients and their physicians is tantamount to exporting malpractice. Opponents of international family planning and related health programs have gone beyond the Global Gag Rule and continue to work for cuts and restrictions on funding. The cuts and restrictions imposed during recent years, and the threats to extend such measures into the future, continue to cause a significant increase in unplanned pregnancies, abortions, maternal and infant deaths, transmissions of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The U.S. government's decision to cut funding to UNFPA is due to UNFPA's alleged support for coerced abortions in China. In fact, the State Department has submitted a report clearly establishing that this is not the truth. At the Asia Pacific Conference on Population and Development, the United States delegation tried to water down women's rights to health and family planning significantly, reducing the decisions on reproduction rights to a moral debate on abortion. Given the nature of the impact of the Global Gag Rule, it is important to understand that the Global Gag Rule is not just about abortion. It is about so much more. It is about what the United States stands for in the eyes of the world and how it strives to promote human rights and democracy, not just within its borders but across the world.
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REVERSAL OF THE GLOBAL GAG RULE WOULD PROVIDE NGOs WITH $34 MILLION A YEAR FOR FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES
Vanessa Renée Casavant, Staff Writer, 06-06-’05, Legislative Gazette [http://www.legislativegazette.com/printable.php?id=628]
Each year, 500,000 women across the world die from preventable complications of pregnancy, according to Family Planning Advocates of New York State.
Leaders of their European counterpart spent last week in New York discussing the effects of President Bush revoking promised funding for family planning agencies in developing countries.
For the past three years, Bush has stopped a $34 million appropriation by Congress to the United Nations Population Fund that provides for family planning and emergency response services in 140 countries. Within the next few months, Bush is expected to make his decision on this year’s $34 million appropriation.
“They are essentially holding this money ransom,” said state Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island.
She was joined last Wednesday in the Albany Room restaurant by state Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D,WF-Mount Vernon, and Vicky Claeys, who heads the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European office in Brussels, for a round table discussion on this issue. Savino said she found it appalling the United States would go into developing nations to help and then turn around and deliberately withhold funds from them based on the ideology of a select few.
The funds earmarked by Congress have been tied up partly because of Bush’s reinstatement of the global gag rule, according to Family Planning Advocates. The policy prohibits funding of any foreign family planning agency that, with its own money, provides abortion counseling or services, or advocates for more lenient abortion laws. The agencies are required to use their own money because of the 1973 Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits funds being used for abortions overseas and biomedical research and lobbying on abortion was prohibited in 1981. As of two years ago, no violations to these policies had been reported, according to Population Action International.
The global gag rule also directly affects the funding and donation of contraceptives to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
“It is scandalous that the United States refuses to provide funding to UNFPA and IPPF because of the anti-choice attitude of the Bush Administration,” she said.
Two months ago, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of overturning the global rule. However, the U.S. House of Representatives has yet to move the bill.
“The global gag rule has a very devastating affect throughout the world,” Claeys said. “We have lost more than $80 million over the years.”
She said the lack of funds has forced clinics to close and the gap is next to impossible to fill with alternative funding. Even a grassroots campaign called 34 Million Friends of UNFP that was started by two women from New Mexico in 2002 has barely scratched the surface with $2.6 million. Claeys said with clinics being forced to close, reproductive health care has become inaccessible to many in some of the poorest countries of the world, eroded social support programs and diminished education about sexually transmitted diseases.
“You need the whole package,” she said. “It’s not just about abortion.”
According to Family Planning Advocates, the $34 million could prevent 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths each year. In addition, the money could help prevent 800,000 abortions and 2 million unintended pregnancies.
“You’re not going to reduce it by making it impossible,” Claeys said about abortion. “That’s absolute rubbish.”
According to the World Health Organization, more than 80,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions. JoAnn Smith, president and CEO of Family Planning Advocates of New York State, said U.S. policies involving the global gag rule fail to recognize the need for preventative health care.
Draft as of Aug 3rd
Gag Rule Affirmative
Culpepper/Powers Lab
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Contention One is Inherency:
Current family planning funding falls far short – the US, which historically leads the way, is slipping
Shanti R. Conly, Office of HIV/AIDS at USAID, Director of Policy Research at Population Action International, July/August 1998, “Sub-Saharan Africa at the turning point - contraceptive use gains acceptance”, The Humanist, __http://findarticles.com/p /articles/mi_m1374/is_n4_v58 /ai_20979794__ (Victor)
Advantage One: Diplomacy
First, gag rule undermines US credibility and fuels anti-Americanism – we must reverse current trends to maintain our leadership role
Center for Reproductive Rights, July 2001, “The Bush Global Gag Rule: A Violation of International Human Rights”, __http://www.reproductiverights .org/pdf/pub_bp_bushggr _violation.pdf__ (Victor)
An increase in family planning is necessary to revitalize US soft power
Claudia Kennedy, retired Lieutenant General in the US Army, 3/16/06, “Redefining National Security for the New Global Reality”, __http://www.greenwood.com/psi /online_news.aspx__ (Victor)
Soft power is key to hegemony
Nye. 6/2/04. (Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, 6/2/04, “The Benefits of Soft Power”, __http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item .jhtml?id=4290&t=leadership__
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US hegemony is critical – the only other option is a global vacuum and multiple nuclear war scenarios
Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at NYU, 2004, “A World Without Power,” Foreign Policy [ebsco] (Victor)
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Advantage Two: Democracy
First, gag rule has a chilling effect on democracy promotion and civil society – peaceful democracy and abortion liberalization movements are being silenced
Rachael Seevers, JD, Brooklyn Law School, 2006, “The Politics of Gagging: The Effects of the Global Gag Rule on Democratic Participation and Political Advocacy in Peru”, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, __www.brooklaw.edu/students /journals/bjil/bjil31iii _seevers.pdf__ (Victor)
The US currently coordinates efforts peacefully with European allies to promote democracy
Larry Diamond, Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, January 1998, “”Building a Democratic Africa”, Hoover Institution, __http://www.hoover.org/publicati ons/digest/3532546.html__ (Victor)
US democracy promotion reduces the incentive for regional and international conflict
Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, December 1995, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives”, Carnegie Corporation (NY), __http://wwics.si.edu/subsites /ccpdc/pubs/di/di.htm__ (Victor)
African democracy is critical to stability and preventing conflict and violence
Larry Diamond, Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, January 1998, “”Building a Democratic Africa”, Hoover Institution, __http://www.hoover.org/publicati ons/digest/3532546.html__ (Victor)
African instability sparks nuclear war
Jeffrey Deutsch, PhD, political risk consultant, researcher and founder of the Rabid Tigers Project, 11/18/02, “THE RABID TIGER PROJECT'S MAJOR PREDICTION FOR 2025”, The Rabid Tiger Newsletter, Vol. II, No. 9, __http://mysite.verizon.net/jeff _deutsch/newsletterv2n9.html__ (Victor)
Advantage Three: Overpopulation
We’ll isolate two scenarios:
First is the carrying capacity
Growth rates are skyrocketing in sub-Saharan Africa and overwhelm declines in industrialized nations
Population Action International, April 2007, “Fewer or More? The Real Story of Global Population”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS32/Population_Growth.pdf__ (Victor)
Family planning is critical to reducing population growth
Tom Gardner-Outlaw, Senior Technical Advisor of Population & Environment at USAID and Senior Researcher at Population Action International, and Robert Engelman, Vice President for Research at Population Action International, 1/1/99, “Forest Futures – Population, Consumption, and Wood”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Reports /Forest_Futures/Forest_Futures .pdf__ (Victor)
Reducing the population now saves the lives of tenfold in the future
Paul Ehrlich, biology professor, Stanford, 6/16/1974, “Peasants Know Perfectly Well Where Their Babies Come From: Misconceptions” New York Times, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, p241
Overpopulation poses a grave threat to human survival – we must act before it’s too late
J. Kenneth Smail, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Kenyon College, September/October 2004, Worldwatch Institute, __http://www.worldwatch.org /system/files/EP175M.pdf__ (Victor)
Second is deforestation
First, African forests are being destroyed due to rapid population growth
Population Action International, 2007, “Why Population Growth Matters to the Future of Forests”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS10/Summary.shtml__ (Victor)
Family planning is critical to stopping deforestation before it overwhelms us
Population Action International, 2007, “Why Population Growth Matters to the Future of Forests”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS10/Summary.shtml__ (Victor)
Forests are the most critical part of biodiversity
Tom Gardner-Outlaw, Senior Technical Advisor of Population & Environment at USAID and Senior Researcher at Population Action International, and Robert Engelman, Vice President for Research at Population Action International, 1/1/99, “Forest Futures – Population, Consumption, and Wood”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Reports /Forest_Futures/Forest_Futures .pdf__ (Victor)
Biodiversity is critical to planetary survival
Paul Warner, life sciences at American University, August 1994 (Politics and Life Sciences) p. 177
Thus the plan:
The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by providing all necessary support for unrestricted family planning programs.
Contention Three: Solvency
First, the United States plays a vital role in the global health sphere – its family planning programs serve to model for foreign programs because of its empirical success and expertise
Population Action International, 2007, “Why the US Should Support Family Planning Overseas”, __http://www.populationaction .org/Publications/Fact_Sheets /FS16/Summary.shtml__ (Victor)
And, as we invest more in family planning, the benefits will be greater
Julia Ernst, Executive Director of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at Georgetown University Law Center, and Tzili Mor, international legal fellow at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, 2003, “Breaking the Silence: The Global Gag Rule’s Impact on Unsafe Abortion”, Center for Reproductive Rights, __http://www.reproductiverights .org/pdf/bo_ggr.pdf__ (Victor)
The US needs to maintain its dominant role in the health sphere – it can’t be replaced without losing lives – no one else has the necessary integrated approach, expertise or innovative research
Susan A. Cohen, Director of Government Affairs at the Guttmacher Institute, January 1997, “A Response to Concerns about Population Assistance”, __http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs /ib15.html__ (Victor)
The US’s leadership role allows it to easily coordinate global efforts, forge alliances – American expertise and experience are critical to success
Wendy R. Turnbull, Senior Policy and Research Analyst at Population Action International, 1/1/96, “Endangered: U.S. Aid for Family Planning Overseas”, __http://findarticles.com/p /articles/mi_m0KDK/is_1996_Jan _1/ai_n18607203__ (Victor)
The plan would free up money for further infrastructure building and development
Adam Sonfield, Senior Public Policy Associate at the Guttmacher Institute, Winter 2006, “Working to Eliminate the World’s Unmet Need for Contraception”, Guttmacher Policy Review, Volume 9, Number 1, __http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs /gpr/09/1/gpr090110.html__ (Victor)
The benefits of family planning assistance spills over to other spheres of health and society – boosting assistance is necessary to stopping cuts from hurting these other spheres
Wendy R. Turnbull, Senior Policy and Research Analyst at Population Action International, 1/1/96, “Endangered: U.S. Aid for Family Planning Overseas”, __http://findarticles.com/p /articles/mi_m0KDK/is_1996_Jan _1/ai_n18607203__ (Victor)
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Contention 1 is Inherency
First, the House has passed bill removing gag rule, but Bush has vetoed
Sean Lengell, staff writer, 6/22/07, The Washington Times, “House overturns aid ban for groups offering abortions”
The House yesterday narrowly approved a measure to reverse a 23-year-old U.S. policy against providing foreign-aid grants for contraception to groups that also offer abortions abroad.
The amendment to the 2008 State Department appropriations bill, sponsored by Rep. Nita M. Lowey, New York Democrat, passed 223-201. The vote closely followed party lines, with Democrats supporting the amendment by 207-24, and Republicans opposed by 177-16.
President Bush has promised to veto the amendment, which was attached to the $34 billion bill that pays for State Department operations and foreign aid for fiscal 2008.
The legislation seeks to overturn a policy initiated by President Reagan that bars any assistance to organizations that perform or promote abortion abroad as a method of family planning. The policy is often referred to as the "Mexico City Policy" after the population conference where Mr. Reagan announced it in 1984.
Democrats have complained the policy has caused a significant shortage of contraceptives in poor countries; Republicans say Mrs. Lowey's amendment will lead to abortions in foreign countries at U.S. taxpayers' expense.
"We cannot reduce abortions without contraception," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Democrat.
Mrs. Lowey said that by providing easier access to contraceptives, her legislation would help reduce abortions, unintended pregnancies, the spread of HIV and "save the lives of mothers."
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Thus the plan:
The United States federal government should substantially increase its support of family planning programs in Sub Saharan Africa that provide abortion services.
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Contention 2 is Harms
Advantage 1 is Free Speech
THE GLOBAL GAG RULE PROHIBITS FREE SPEECH, DENIES WOMEN THE RIGIHT TO ABORTION, AND HURTS PROMOTION OF THE U.S. DEMOCRACY MODEL
Barbara Boxer, US Senator, 05-05-’05, Speech [http://boxer.senate.gov/senate/20050405_print.cfm]
Mr. President, today I'm offering an amendment to overturn the so-called Mexico City Policy which undermines some of our country's most important values and goals. The Mexico City Policy is also known as the Global Gag Rule. And I will explain exactly what it does in a moment.
Most of my colleagues know the history of this policy. It was named the "Mexico City Policy" because that's where it was announced in 1984. But it is also known, as I said, as the Global Gag Rule because that's exactly what it does. It gags international organizations that receive USAID family planning funds.
What does that mean? It means, for example, that a family planning clinic in Nepal that receives USAID funding is prohibited from using the clinic's own funds to provide, advocate for, or even talk about abortion to the women they serve - even talk to a woman about her options.
Now, we could debate that, but I'm not going to debate that. What I am going to debate is why the greatest, freest country in the world, the United States of America, would put a Global Gag Rule -- put a tape over the mouths of organizations who are trying to help the women in their country if they use their own funds, not U.S. funds, but their own funds for those purposes.
I cannot understand for the life of me how we can in good faith, as the leading democracy in the world, sending our troops abroad, and they are dying every day for freedom of speech and the kind of Constitution we hope they will have -- how we could put a Global Gag Rule on those organizations, when in this country you couldn't even consider it for two seconds because it would be completely unconstitutional
My friends, this is a free country. We are proud of the fact that it is free. We are proud of the fact that we don't tell our citizens what they can think, what they can say if it's on their own dime. But yet abroad, in some of the poorest countries in the world, we are saying, "If you want a penny of federal funds, USAID or the like, you cannot use your funds in any way you would like. We're telling family clinics who are out there in the toughest of circumstances -- treating women in the direst poverty situations -- we're telling them that they are gagged if they want to receive any U.S. funds.
I would say that this Global Gag Rule is not fair. We are a country that believes in fundamental fairness, and yet this Global Gag Rule tells foreign, non-governmental organizations -- these are people out there working in the toughest circumstance -- how they should spend their own money. For example, it tells clinics they can't use their own money to help a woman in deep despair who comes in with a serious problem, an unintended pregnancy, perhaps even forcedn her. It tells the NGOs, the non-governmental organizations, they can't use their own funds, they can't even advocate for the laws.
Let's say for example there's a law on the books in one of these poor countries that says if you're raped or you are a victim of incest, you cannot have an abortion. And in this country, we changed that. If you are a victim of rape or incest, we say federal funds can be used to help you. Let's say there's a country that has a total restriction, even if you are raped or there's incest involved, and the non-governmental entity is trying to change that in their country. Under the Global Gag Rule we would say, you would lose all of your federal dollars if you advocate to change those, what I would call, ignorant laws.
It tells other countries, this Global Gag Rule, that you can't even tell a woman who comes before you what her options could be, even if the woman asks, "What can I do?" You cannot tell them. In our country, that would be illegal, unconstitutional. But no, we put this on the poorest nations of the world. That's not Uncle Sam. That's Imperial Sam, and none of us wants to be imperial. At least that's my impression. We want to be democratic. But we're not acting in a democratic fashion when we have this double standard around the world.
We believe here in freedom of speech, and yet the Global Gag Rule tells foreign, non-governmental organizations they cannot in any way express an opinion on this subject without losing their funds. We don't tell United States of America organizations what they can say and not say in this country, even if we find it offensive, there's a lot of organizations that I find, gee, I think we'd be better off without them. I don't think their advocacy is right. But I have no right as a United States Senator to tell any organization in America, "You know, I'm tired of hearing what you're saying. Don't say it anymore." Because if I tried to stop them here, I would be ruled out of order, unconstitutional, and that would be the right thing. But yet we do it to nongovernmental organizations.
Some of us in this chamber just came back from Iraq. I was one of those people. And we saw the unimaginable challenges facing our soldiers, government officials, and the Iraqis themselves. As they struggle to deal with a very dangerous insurgency in that country. Our soldiers are putting their lives on the line so that the Iiraqis have a chance to live in freedom -- to live in freedom. And one of the foremost freedoms in our country that we wish for other people is freedom of speech. Government will not interfere with you no matter what you say as long as you're not hurting anybody or inciting anybody. You can hold an opinion. That's why our soldiers are over there, fighting so that the Iraqi people can write a constitution that gives them the same freedoms we have here.
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We heard the Iraqis say -- they told us, the up-and-coming leaders -- "We read your constitution. We read your history. We know about your filibuster and how it protects minority rights." These are the Iraqis. We heard our soldiers say they're willing to risk their lives so the Iraqis can have freedom. Well, that includes freedom of speech. But yet we take away the freedom of non-governmental organizations to tell the truth to the women who may come before them seeking help on a reproductive freedom.
Our policy should be a model for the world. But the Gag Rule, that's a bad signal. It enforces a dangerous code of silence. It tells people, if the government in power doesn't agree with you, then put a gag over your mouth and just suck it up and don't tell the truth about how you feel and keep vital information from the women you are serving.
You know, whether you're pro-choice, anti-choice, it has nothing to do with it. It's a question of freedom of speech. And I would hope that regardless of our feeling on the issue of choice, regardless of how we come down, we would agree that it is fair to have a debate about it. I may not like to hear your
opinion. If I don't agree with you, it may be hard for me to handle. But that's part of this great country. We have to listen to each other, we have to debate, and we have to respect each other's views, but you don't respect a view --
My friends, this is a radical thing we're dealing with. Because when you tell agencies they have to make a deal with the devil, take money and then be gagged, many of them will say, "I don't want your money. I would rather be able to advocate." And if they don't take the money, then they're in a terrible circumstance because they've got to lay off people who would go out and prevent young women, they're preventing young women from family planning. And when those young women in the poorest of the poorest nations are desperate, unfortunately, they may seek what we called here when abortion was illegal, back-alley abortions, and women die. And many women die. Thousands and tens of thousands every year across this globe because of illegal abortion.
I believe very much that family planning is the answer. It can bring us all together whether we believe in a woman's right to choose or we believe the government should be involved in it and tell a woman -- and tell a family -- how to live their life. Regardless of what side you are on. My goodness, family planning ought to bring us together, because for those of us who believe abortion should be safe, legal and rare, the way to get to that place is to have adequate family planning. And for those who believe the government should jail women and jail doctors who have abortions and give abortions, then we should have family planning to have fewer abortions.
A person cannot even speak as a community member or a parent because how can you differentiate between an individual or the fact that they are an employee of this non-governmental organization. The point being made here is, here is someone being seen in the clinic, the tragedy of one man impregnating three girls in a school, and feels that he or she can't speak out in their capacity as an individual citizen because they work for a non-governmental organization. Then that organization will be forced to give up its funding.
This is a very bad policy.
I don't want to see us continue this Global Gag Rule. It is hurting the very people we say we care about, the poorest of the poor, the women, the girls, the victims of rape, the victims of incest.
Basically, what we're saying in our amendment is we believe in human rights. We believe in freedom of speech. We believe other countries should have the same freedoms that we have in this country. And if we can't gag people in this country, let's not do it abroad just because we can. Almost 60 years ago in the dark shadows of World War II, it was our country that championed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to set a standard for human rights all over the world. This is what that declaration said: The advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people."
We are on the side of people who are evil, and that is wrong. And that is not what our government ought to be doing. The aspirations of our country and of our people should be reflected in our policies, and that's why I will urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do what they have done over and over again and stand up and be counted on the side of freedom and justice,... yeah, and the American Way. Because it is the American Way to allow freedom and justice and to allow people, even when we don't agree with them, to take their complaints and their points of view to their governments. That's what our soldiers are fighting for and dying for in Iraq,. And yet, with this policy, we stand on the side of tyranny.
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS NECESSARY FOR DEMOCRACY PROMOMTION IN AFRICA
Afrobarometer; produced collaboratively by social scientists from various African countries, coordinated
by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), and Michigan State University (MSU); 07/’03 [http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfrobriefNo7.pdf]
Africans value freedom of speech. In Afrobarometer* surveys in a dozen African countries, people say that democracy requires that citizens are able to criticize the performance of governments. It seems reasonable to suppose that the liberty of individuals to express themselves evolves together with the emergence of a free press. This connection raises important questions. Does exposure to a plural mass media – or to other, informal modes of communication – promote popular democratic values? What happens to such values when governments control the media of mass communications? Are ordinary Africans – or the opinion leaders among them – willing to stand up to defend press freedom? After documenting relevant facts about public opinion and media exposure, this briefing paper offers answers to these questions. Africans associate democracy with free speech. As shown in Afrobarometer Briefing Paper No. 1, Africans associate democracy with freedom. When asked, “what does democracy mean to you?” they most frequently cite civil and political liberties (40 percent of all responses) rather than popular participation in decision-making (16 percent), regular multiparty elections (10 percent), or socioeconomic development (4 percent). After freedom in general, the respondents to Afrobarometer surveys emphasize rights of expression, including freedoms of conscience, speech and the press (43 percent of all liberties mentioned) (see Figure 1). And three quarters (76 percent) agree that a citizen’s freedom to criticize the government is “important” or “essential” for a society to be called democratic. We use this indicator to capture popular commitments to free speech throughout this paper. So defined, free speech is valued most highly in Botswana and Nigeria (by 85 and 83 percent of adults), but less so in Namibia and Lesotho (67 and 52 percent, respectively). We interpret these results to mean that a majority of Africans across the continent rejects the culture of silence associated with authoritarian rule. Instead, they welcome new opportunities to speak out on political issues.
THE GAG RULE UNDERMINES DEMOCRACY PROMOTION – IT RESTRICTS THE FREEDOM TO ENGAGE IN PUBLIC POLICY DEBATES BASED ON ABORTION
POPULATION ACTION INTERNATIONAL, 2006
(“How the Global Gag Rule Undermines U.S. Foreign Policy and Harms Women’s Health,” 2006, http://66.39.133.128/resources/factsheets/factsheet_5.htm, google , accessed on 7/19/07)
The gag rule undermines U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world. It is called a “gag” rule because it stifles public debate on abortion-related issues, requiring private organizations overseas to choose between continuing their non-U.S. funded efforts to change public policy around abortion in their own countries, or receiving U.S. family planning funds. Restricting their freedom to engage in public policy debates undermines a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy – the promotion of democracy abroad – and its core principle of free and open debate.
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Democracy key to African stability
Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, 1998, Hoover Digest, http://www.hooverdigest.org/983/diamond.html
The common root cause of economic decay, state collapse, ethnic violence, civil war, and humanitarian disaster in Africa is bad, abusive governance. Because most states lack any semblance of a rule of law and norms of accountability that bind the conduct of those in government, their societies have fallen prey to massive corruption, nepotism, and the personal whims of a tiny ruling elite.
The only real antidote to this decay is a constitutional framework that facilitates the limitation, separation, devolution, and sharing of power so that each group can have a stake in the system while checking the ruling elite and one another. In essence, this means a democratic political system, to one degree or another.
Given Africa’s authoritarian history, many changes in beliefs and institutions will be necessary for democracy to emerge. A growing segment of African elites and the public realize that every type of dictatorship on the continent has been a disaster. Thus, there is increasing hunger for economic and political freedom and the predictability of a democratic constitution.
In Africa, more than in any other region, the international community has the power to demand more democratic, responsible governance and to support the people and organizations that are pressing for that cause within individual countries. African states are very weak and dependent. For example, 70 percent of Chad’s budget comes from international donors. Even in Nigeria, with annual oil revenues of $8–$10 billion, the regime needs foreign investment and finance and its leaders crave legitimacy and acceptance in the world. Moreover, the personal assets of many corrupt African elites are invested heavily in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Their children attend private schools there, and they want to shop and spend holidays in the Western world. This gives the Western democracies true leverage, if they have the will and vision to exercise it.
There is a new spirit and awareness in Africa today, and some states are beginning to record rapid economic growth as a result. If the structures of democracy and the market become institutionalized in Africa, development will follow and the continuous cycle of violence and misery can be brought to an end.
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DEMOCRACY is at a cross-roads – its spread is key to global stability and human survival
DIAMOND ’95 (Larry, senior fellow @ Hoover, editor Journal of Democracy, co-director of the Int’t Forum for Democratic Studies - National Endowment for Democracy, prof. poli sci and sociology @ Stanford, coordinator Democracy Program of the new Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990’s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives,” Dec., http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/di.htm)
Five years after the collapse of global Communism, two decades since the start of the most sweeping wave of democratic transitions in world history, the new global "order" seems a bundle of contradictions. The Cold War is over, but many argue that a new one--even a "clash of civilizations"--has commenced between militant Islam and the democratic West. The threat of "mutually assured destruction" in nuclear war has ebbed. But rogue states, maniacal tyrants, criminal networks, and apocalyptic cults are all racing to get weapons of mass destruction, and some have already shown their willingness to use them in war or terrorism. In the formal sense of civilian, constitutional, multiparty regimes, there are more democracies in the world than ever before. Yet roughly half of those that have emerged since 1974 are not fully "free," and in a growing number, democracy is eroding and threatening to collapse under the weight of ethnic and religious conflict, secessionist violence, terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, economic disarray, and state decay. Perhaps the sharpest contradiction is that which grips the democratic West, and particularly the United States. Now, when the world is more fluid and volatile politically than at any time since World War II, when an old order has broken down and a new one has yet to be built--when global leadership and vision are most needed--U.S. foreign policy drifts from crisis to crisis, bereft of the clear doctrine and bipartisan consensus that underpinned the nation's global leadership in previous eras. Now, when new threats are rising and chaos looms on many fronts, the U.S. government is mired in debt, its foreign operations are being cut back sharply, and doubt grows both at home and abroad that the United States has "any purpose in the world beyond promoting its own interests."1 Public support for "protecting and defending human rights in other countries" is down 24 percent since 1990. Already-modest support for "helping to bring a democratic form of government to other nations" has fallen to its lowest level in twenty years. In principle, Americans continue to support international engagement as much as ever, but they increasingly fail to see a larger purpose beyond protecting narrow security and economic interests.2 With the value of the dollar diminishing and their economic future in doubt, it is not surprising that Americans are less inclined to support a foreign policy based on generous aims and grand ideals. Too often missing from the public debate, however, is an appreciation for how "hard" security and economic interests are inextricably, if often subtly, linked to the pursuit of liberal internationalist ideals. Throughout this century, and in some respects since its founding, American democracy has seen the promotion of democracy and freedom in other countries as part of its unique identity and purpose, but also as crucial to its national security and ultimately to the protection of its own liberty.3 Now more than ever, as borders become more porous and people, technologies, ideas, and weapons cascade across them, the safety and well-being of Americans--and Europeans, and Japanese, and Australians--is bound up with the nature of political order in less established polities. In this period of drift and doubt, it is important for Americans, and their allies among the industrialized democracies, to ask hard questions. What are the threats to our national security and economic well-being in the coming years? What must we do--and spend--globally in the coming years to defend our interests? How do those interests relate to our values as a people and society
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AFRICAN INSTABILITY WILL LEAD TO A NUCLEAR WAR
Jeffrey Deutsch, founder of the Rabid Tiger Project, a political risk consulting and related research firm, 11-18-02, [http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html]
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown.
Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect - not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you.
Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help - financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
Asia is a close second, due to the competition of major powers. For example, in an Indo-Paki confrontation, China may be tempted to side with Pakistan, since China and India are major nuclear powers sharing a long border. However, the Asian powers are basically stable internally, at least for now.
The things to watch for are domestic economic and political instability in a nuclear power, the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries and new national antagonisms and great-power ties either weak or nonexistent enough to enable opportunistic alliances and destabilization, or strong enough that the great powers feel compelled to follow their client states.
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SUPRESSION OF FREE SPEECH LEADS TO ETHNIC CONFLICT, WAR, AND GENOCIDE
Frances D’Souza, Executive Director of Article 19, the International Centre Against Censorship, 05-25-’96, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy Subcommittee on Human Rights
In the absence of freedom of expression which in-cludes a free and independent media, it is impossible to protect other rights, including the right to life. Once governments are able to draw a cloak of secrecy over their actions and to remain unaccountable for their actions then massive human rights violations can, and do, take place. For this reason alone the right to freedom of expression, specifically protected in the major international human rights treaties, must be considered to be a primary right. It is significant that one of the first indications of a government's intention to depart from democratic principles is the ever increasing control of information by means of gagging the media, and preventing the freeflow of information from abroad. At one end of the spectrum there are supposedly minor infringements of this fundamental right which occur daily in Western democracies and would include abuse of national security laws to prevent the publication of information which might be embarrassing to a given government: at the other end of the scale are the regimes of terror which employ the most brutal moves to suppress opposition, information and even the freedom to exercise religious beliefs. It has been argued, and will undoubtedly be discussed at this Hearing, that in the absence of free speech and an independent media, it is relatively easy for governments to capture, as it were, the media and to fashion them into instruments of propaganda, for the promotion of ethnic conflict, war and genocide.
To some the right to free speech may appear to be one of the fringe human rights, especially when compared to such violations as torture and extra-judicial killings. It is also sometimes difficult to dissuade the general public that censorship, generally assumed to be something to do with banning obscene books or magazines, is no bad thing! It requires a recognition of some of the fundamental principles of democracy to understand why censorship is so immensely dangerous. The conditon of democracy is that people are able to make choices about a wide variety of issues which affect their lives, including what they wish to see, read, hear or discuss. While this may seem a somewhat luxurious distinction preoccupying, perhaps, wealthy Western democracies, it is a comparatively short distance between government censorship of an offensive book to the silencing of political dissidents. And the distance between such silencing and the use of violence to suppress a growing political philosophy which a government finds inconvenient is even shorter. Censorship tends to have small beginnings and to grow rapidly. Allowing a government to have the power to deny people information, however trivial, not only sets in place laws and procedures which can and will be used by those in authority against those with less authority, but it also denies people the information which they must have in order to monitor their governments actions and to ensure accountability.
There have been dramatic and terrible examples of the role that censorship has played in international politics in the last few years: to name but a few, the extent to which the media in the republics of former Yugoslavia were manipulated by government for purposes of propaganda; the violent role played by the government associated radio in Rwanda which incited citizens to kill each other in the name of ethnic purity and the continuing threat of murder issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran against a citizen of another country for having written a book which displeased them.
There are undoubted connections between access to information, or rather the lack of it, and war, as indeed there are between poverty, the right to freedom of expression and development. One can argue that democracy aims to increase participation in political and other decision-making at all levels. In this sense democracy empowers people. The poor are denied access to information on decisions which deeply affect their lives, are thus powerless and have no voice; the poor are not able to have influence over their own lives, let alone other aspect of society. Because of this essential powerlessness, the poor are unable to influence the ruling elite in whose interests it may be to initiate conflict and wars in order to consolidate their own power and position.
Of the 126 developing countries listed in the 1993 Human Development Report, war was ongoing in 30 countries and severe civil conflict in a further 33 countries. Of the total 63 countries in conflict, 55 are towards the bottom scale of the human development index which is an indicator of poverty. There seems to be no doubt that there is a clear association between poverty and war. It is reasonably safe to assume that the vast majority of people do not ever welcome war. They are normally coerced, more often than not by propaganda, into fear, extreme nationalist sentiments and war by their governments. If the majority of people had a democratic voice they would undoubtedly object to war. But voices are silenced. Thus, the freedom to express one's views and to challenge government decisions and to insist upon political rather than violent solutions, are necessary aspects of democracy which can, and do, avert war.
Government sponsored propaganda in Rwanda, as in former Yugoslavia, succeeded because there weren't the means to challenge it. One has therefore to conclude that it is impossible for a particular government to wage war in the absence of a compliant media willing to indulge in government propaganda. This is because the government needs civilians to fight wars for them and also because the media is needed to re-inforce government policies and intentions at every turn.
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Advantage 2 is Overpopulation
Africa is experiencing extremely high growth rates
Erik Curren, Editor of Conserve Magazine, 10/23/06, Nabeepchen “The population bomb is ticking again"
Scenarios are dire, but solutions may be surprisingly easy”
“Yet, today around the world you still have huge and growing problems in terms of resource scarcity, water, arable crop land, forests and other resources. And that’s only going to get much, much worse if we don’t do more.”
Like many experts on population issues, Preston is less concerned with the U.S. than with developing nations, who are the main contributors to a runaway world population of 6.5 billion.
America reaching 300 million is “indicative of a much bigger story in the developing world,” Preston says. “Here we’re talking about sustainable development, sprawl, habitat loss, and other problems. But if you look at the developing world, the situation is much more serious. In Uganda or Ethiopia for example populations are doubling every 30 years. They already have huge issues with hunger and famine and are already dependent on food aid from foreign donors including the U.S.”
“Imagine if we were talking about the likelihood that our population would jump to 600 million in 30 to 40 years. There would be a strong sense that this was a very grave problem. People would term it a crisis or a catastrophe. But that’s the reality in some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, it’s not being talked about much here and some easy, popular programs to ease this crisis are being neglected by the U.S. and other rich countries.”
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Despite effectiveness, the US does not support Family Planning
Erik Curren, Editor of Conserve Magazine, 10/23/06, Nabeepchen “The population bomb is ticking again"
But this kind of compassion-fatigue is unnecessary. The most effective population control measure, family planning, is many times cheaper than any military option. It is even cheaper than famine relief.
Family planning has been so effective that, because of efforts to educate women and couples about contraception so that they can choose to have the number of kids they want at the time they want them, birth rates have fallen in many developing nations. In Mexico and Egypt, for example, birth rates have been halved in the last 35 years, according to Preston.
Yet, despite its proved effectiveness, family planning has dropped to a small percentage of the U.S. foreign aid budget. “U.S. taxpayers spend $1 billion on food aid yearly. Last year in Ethiopia alone we spent more on food aid than we did on family planning across the planet,” Preston says.
Since it came into office, the Bush Administration has cut family-planning funding significantly. Population experts like Preston say that this is not because family planning doesn’t work – it does – or that people in developing countries don’t want contraceptives – they do, even in strongly Catholic or Muslim nations – but for domestic political reasons.
Some opponents of abortion also oppose contraception, and since the White House has been eager to obtain the support of its religious base, it has tried to distance itself from birth control. But since Americans overwhelmingly support access to contraception – 81 percent in a Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive poll from last year – the administration has hesitated to declare open war on birth control. Instead, it has quietly cut funding to support family-planning programs abroad.
“This administration is in thrall to a domestic political base that is fundamentally opposed to the right of women to use contraceptives,” said Brian Dixon, director of government relations at another advocacy group, Population Connection.
“One of the first things that this president did in 2001 was to implement a global gag-rule, to cut off U.S. aid to any family-planning providers around the world who had any connection to abortion.”
The gag-rule said that if health-care providers wanted to receive U.S. funds, then they couldn’t even counsel patients on abortion or bring it up as an option. Because many doctors, nurses and medical aides were not willing to play by Washington’s new restrictions, they lost funding.
“The rule caused clinics to close in Zambia and Kenya and it caused the laying off of healthcare staff. It has also led to a shortage of contraceptives in Ethiopia. But the gag-rule has had no impact on abortion, except maybe to increase it, because we’ve cut off access to contraception. The U.S. no longer contributes to the UN Population Fund because the President refuses to release the funds that Congress has appropriated for it. The target in all of these cases is contraceptives.”
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Women in Africa want more access to contraceptives to improve quality of life and cannot get them
Erik Curren, Editor of Conserve Magazine, 10/23/06, Nabeepchen “The population bomb is ticking again"
Though the effects of overpopulation worldwide and even in the U.S. could be horrific – imagine Blade Runner, Escape from New York or your favorite sci-fi vision of an overcrowded apocalypse – Dixon says that the main solution, family planning, is relatively simple to implement.
“The real cause for hope is that we know how to do this. There’s no need to make huge sacrifices. We’re giving people the tools to make decisions about their lives. Not only does it help the global picture but it helps individual families. Women can become part of their communities through work. Kids can go to school. Countries can catch up. It allows nations to start improving the quality of life for their people.
“Family planning is a relatively simple and cheap solution. That’s very hopeful. We just need the political will. We don’t need to find new technologies and complicated solutions. It’s really about giving people what they already want.”
Surveys consistently show that couples in developing nations want more access to birth control than they have now.
Contraceptives are the only way to slow down overpopulation
Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor, 1/31/07, The Independent (London) “Birth rates 'must be curbed to win war on global poverty” Lexis
The earth's population will approach an unsustainable total of 10.5 billion unless contraception is put back at the top of the agenda for international efforts to alleviate global poverty. A report by MPs released today challenges world leaders to put the contraceptive pill and the condom at the centre of their efforts to alleviate global poverty, tackle starvation and even help to avert global warming.
Gordon Brown has staked his future premiership on leading the world in tackling global poverty. And the report, by the all-party parliamentary group on population, development and reproductive growth, makes the point that the population surge presents a massive stumbling block for his ambition.
Since the 1970s, when coercion was used in India and China, family planning has become a dirty word among environmental and hunger campaigners. But the report warns that eight UN targets for reducing poverty in the developing world will be missed unless world leaders do more to stop the soaring birth rates.
The group says the UK will have to take on the religious ideology of the neoconservatives in the White House against contraception. The MPs call for an end to the so-called "global gag rule", that was reintroduced by President George Bush.
It has put non-governmental organisations outside the US "in an untenable position" and forced them to choose between carrying out their work safeguarding the health and rights of women or losing their funding from the US. The Labour MP Christine McCafferty, who chairs the group, said there would be a 50 per cent rise in the world's population by 2050 unless family planning was made more freely available in the developing world, where 99 per cent of the growth is expected to occur. The report says there is "overwhelming" evidence that the UN's millennium development goals will be missed if population growth is not curbed. The goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating HIV/Aids and ensuring environmental sustainability.
The report carries a graph illustrating the "bulge" in population growth in developing countries since the 1950s, while the birth rate in developed countries has stagnated. The worst-case scenario predicts that unless it is checked the earth's population could soar out of control to more than 36 billion over the next 300 years.
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Overpopulation wipes out economies, increases demands for resources, leads to genocide and conflict, and destroys the environment
Carol A. Kates, Professor of Philosophy at Ithaca College, 2004, Optimum Population Trust "Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation," http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/philrel/replib.pdf
The demand for some of the basic commodities on which the MDGs rely – notably food and water – is elastic if population is growing. The capacity of the environment to supply these commodities is largely inelastic. The capacity of the environment to supply these basic commodities is itself impaired by continuing population growth and the increased demand that goes with it. This is the case, for example, with soil erosion, over-abstraction of water, over-irrigation and salinisation of soil etc. As the UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 noted: “Progress has been made against hunger, but slow growth of agricultural output and expanding populations [italics added] have led to setbacks in some regions.” Particularly in conditions of increasing resource scarcity, population growth may undermine economic growth, and therefore the capacity to realise many of the MDGs that are less directly dependent on the environment – for instance, those involving education and health. It thus maintains poverty in many parts of the world. It is difficult for a resource-poor country with rapid population growth to increase its economic 'cake', even if the cake is growing, because each slice is rapidly having to be divided between ever more individuals. An increase in population will wipe out gains faster than they can be made, whether in agriculture, education, literacy or healthcare. A recent Minister of Health in Morocco maintained that every year his country needed to build nine hospitals, 8,500 classrooms and 150,000 houses - and create 280,000 jobs - just to keep up with population growth. China’s (controversial) population policies have meant that there are now an estimated 400 million fewer Chinese than there would otherwise would have been. According to Zhang Weiqing, of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, slower population growth has “effectively alleviated the imbalance between population and economic resources and tensions between population and the environment". Trade-offs between rapid population growth and development are visible in many African countries. In some cases population growth creates conflict which has proved a potent ingredient in delaying progress towards the MDGs. This was the case in Rwanda in the 1990s where demographers warned repeatedly that rising population, causing diminishing access to land, was creating conditions ripe for violence. Many experts believe the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s was therefore a consequence of population growth (see Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005) but population is also an ingredient in most resource-based conflicts – it is an integral part of the supply (resource) and demand (people) equation. Water conflicts, which it is widely predicted will escalate this century, directly affect MDGs and cannot be divorced from their population component. This is not least because the population (demand) component is in many cases the only one to have changed: the water (supply) component remains broadly the same. The United Nations issued a report to mark World Water Day 2002 which said that two in three people will face water shortages by 2025 if the world continues consuming water at the same rate. It warns of fierce competition for water supplies. The report blames mismanagement of water, population growth and changing weather patterns. Global water-use has at least doubled since 1960, in line with population increase. Again, the UN’s 2005 report on the MDGs noted: “In sub-Saharan Africa, where 42 per cent of the population is still unserved, the obstacles to progress [on access to drinking water], which include conflict, political instability and low priority assigned to investments in water and sanitation, are especially daunting given high population growth rates.” [italics added]. The fundamental trade-offs cited can be masked and modified by technologies but these often have a limited lifespan and limited effects: one of the lessons of recent years is that environmental or resource-use efficiencies tend to be “drowned out” by increases in quantitative demand. They also carry their own costs, both economic and environmental, which not only damage the “servicing” capacity of the environment but divert social and economic resources away from the realisation of the MDGs. The Green Revolution, for example, provided an increase in crop productivity at the expense of greater use of chemicals and water. Many comparable innovations have had the effect of rebalancing developing country economies away from basic need fulfilment and damaging the environment on which the people most dependent on the MDGs rely. These factors apply globally and locally. Ecological footprint studies show that the planet is currently outstripping its biocapacity by 20 per cent ( WWF/UNEP, Living Planet Report, 2004) and that this ecological overshoot is set to grow with rising population and consumption. Population is singled out in the Living Planet Report as one of the factors responsible for this overshoot. The inequities of the global economy camouflage this global overshoot for those living in the developed world but in the developing world the effects are exposed to view, with huge impacts on poverty, hunger, water availability and so on. The uneven distribution of the causes and effects of climate change exacerbate such discrepancies, adding to the failure of local environments to support their local populations. So lack of progress against MDGs in the developing world reflect the failure of local biocapacity to match local population demands magnified by the failure of global biocapacity to meet global population demands. This global failure then acts via the distorting mechanism of the global economy to aggravate local biocapacity failures - by appropriating local resources. This is often the case, for example, with export cash crops and with fisheries. Cash crops appropriate local resources (water, land, energy) for foreign consumption, diverting them from the satisfaction of basic needs. Fisheries involve the appropriation by foreign fleets of local fishing stocks previously supplying direct local needs. In both cases the fundamental cause is ecological overshoot, caused by the mismatch between environmental carrying capacity and population. Ecological footprinting is one way of measuring overshoot. This shows, for example, that if the whole world lived at UK standards, we would require around two more planets to sustain the current population. The UK population , in other words, is “too big” for its current biocapacity; however, the ecological “overdraft” or debt thus created is experienced in the developing world. In that sense, the overpopulation of the UK, and the developed world generally, bears some responsibility for the lack of progress towards meeting the MDGs. Another way of measuring overshoot is to look at its planetary symptoms – climate change, overfishing, food and cropland limits, predicted energy (notably oil) shortages, loss of habitats, species and ecosystems. All these come under the broad heading of “environmental sustainability”, all impact disproportionately on those most reliant on the MDGs and all have a mismatch between carrying capacity and human population as possibly their most crucial ingredient. One of the lessons of history is that human populations have tended to expand up to their (usually inaccurately) perceived limits, which then render them vulnerable to unforeseen environmental or climate change. Many experts now predict that oil supplies will peak in the next few years and that one consequence will be, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, “an enormous surplus population.” The nature of the global economy means that this, again, is likely to impact most seriously on the poorest people and least developed countries.
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Resource Wars will go nuclear and lead to extinction
Stephen Lendman, Host of “The Micro Effect”, 6/6/07, CounterCurrents.Org “Resource Wars, Can we Survive Them?” http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman060607.htm
With the world's energy supplies finite, the US heavily dependent on imports, and "peak oil" near or approaching, "security" for America means assuring a sustainable supply of what we can't do without. It includes waging wars to get it, protect it, and defend the maritime trade routes over which it travels. That means energy's partnered with predatory New World Order globalization, militarism, wars, ecological recklessness, and now an extremist US administration willing to risk Armageddon for world dominance. Central to its plan is first controlling essential resources everywhere, at any cost, starting with oil and where most of it is located in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The new "Great Game's" begun, but this time the stakes are greater than ever as explained above. The old one lasted nearly 100 years pitting the British empire against Tsarist Russia when the issue wasn't oil. This time, it's the US with help from Israel, Britain, the West, and satellite states like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan challenging Russia and China with today's weapons and technology on both sides making earlier ones look like toys. At stake is more than oil. It's planet earth with survival of all life on it issue number one twice over.
Resources and wars for them means militarism is increasing, peace declining, and the planet's ability to sustain life front and center, if anyone's paying attention. hey'd better be because beyond the point of no return, there's no second chanceT the way Einstein explained after the atom was split. His famous quote on future wars was : "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Under a worst case scenario, it's more dire than that. There may be nothing left but resilient beetles and bacteria in the wake of a nuclear holocaust meaning even a new stone age is way in the future, if at all. The threat is real and once nearly happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962. We later learned a miracle saved us at the 40th anniversary October, 2002 summit meeting in Havana attended by the US and Russia along with host country Cuba. For the first time, we were told how close we came to nuclear Armageddon. Devastation was avoided only because Soviet submarine captain Vasily Arkhipov countermanded his order to fire nuclear-tipped torpedos when Russian submarines were attacked by US destroyers near Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Had he done it, only our imagination can speculate what might have followed and whether planet earth, or at least a big part of it, would have survived.
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Advantage 3 is Public Health Diplomacy
THE GLOBAL GAG RULE IS DESTROYING THE UNITED STATE’S INTERNATIONAL IMAGE
Christopher Marquis, Writer of the New York Times, 06-21-’04, New York Times, “US Is Accused of Trying to Isolate UN Population Unit,” Lexis Nexis
The Bush administration, which cut off its share of financing two years ago to the United Nations agency handling population control, is seeking to isolate the agency from groups that work with it in China and elsewhere, United Nations officials and diplomats say.
Pressed by opponents of abortion, the administration withdrew its support from a major international conference on health issues this month and has privately warned other groups, like Unicef, that address health issues that their financing could be jeopardized if they insist on working with the agency, the United Nations Population Fund.
The administration also has indicated that it hopes to persuade the United Nations' Latin American caucus to back away from a common position on population and development that was adopted in Santiago, -Chile, in March on the grounds that the document's discussion of reproductive rights could be interpreted as promoting abortion.
The actions are part of an administration effort to ensure that international agencies and private groups do not promote abortions overseas. In its first days in office, the Bush administration reintroduced the Reagan-era that critics call the ''global gag rule,'' which denies money to groups that even discuss abortion as an option, except in cases that threaten life or involve rape or incest.
The Population Fund, known as Unfpa, has long been a favorite target of abortion opponents in Congress and in religious-based organizations, who contend that it assists in coercive abortions in China. The critics prevented American financing of the fund for most of the last two decades, and they have now set their sights on curbing its operations with other United Nations agencies.
The administration's position has frustrated some United Nations officials and family planning advocates, who have complained that advances in education and awareness on reproductive issues are being undermined by the United States, where abortion is legal. Those critics, most of whom spoke anonymously because the United States government is the leading contributor to their agencies, charged that the administration was pandering to conservative supporters, and said that doing so placed the United States in alliance with tradition-bound Islamic countries and the Holy See.
Last year, the State Department cut financing to Marie Stopes International, a British charity involved in AIDS programs, because it worked with the Population Fund in China.
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Plan key to public health diplomacy
Solomon R. Benatar and Renée C. Fox, Professor of Medicine and Bioethics @ University of Cape Town and Professor of Sociology and Bioethics @ University of Pennsylvania, “Meeting Threats to Global Health: A call for American leadership,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 48.3 (2005) 344-361//Project Muse
Self-Interest as a Force for Improving Global Health - Just as America has sought widespread solidarity in its campaign against terrorism, so is it now in America's best interests to go beyond merely expressing concern about global health. It should set the example of providing solidarity with [End Page 356] others in their quest for access to the basic requirements for decent and healthy living that would give hope for their futures. In this sphere, self-interest and a globally responsive and responsible purview coincide. A glimmer that such thinking could increasingly impact on action is evident in the report from the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations and the Milbank Memorial Fund, outlining the importance of health to American foreign policy (Kassalow 2001). American economist Jeffrey Sach's work on the Commission on Macroeconomics for Health, the inauguration of a Global Health Fund, and President Bush's announcement that the United States will increase its annual development aid from $10 billion to $15 billion—while as yet only partially realized promises—are manifestations of both a deeper understanding of the importance of global health and an acknowledgement of the moral responsibility of developed nations to address this constructively (Friedman 2002; Global Fund 2002/3; WHO 2001). For the best American values—embracing both individual freedom and community responsibility—to become globally pervasive and sustainable, it will be necessary for the power of moral example and long-term national interest to complement economic and military power. Unless the world's most powerful country moves towards showing concern for the lives, health, and well-being of the underprivileged, both within its own borders and beyond, it is likely that the lives of the privileged in America and elsewhere will be progressively devalued by those who have little to lose (Nye 2002). The war on Iraq has severely damaged the reputation of the United States as a source of admired values and commitment to human well-being. It has also reduced the potential for the best of American values to be widely emulated (Soros 2004). The challenge of improving health for millions of people provides a window of opportunity to reclaim lost ground for the benefit of Americans and others. The vast gap between the 2004 U.S. military expenditure of $450 billion and official development assistance of only $15 billion illustrates the potential for innovative global health initiatives led by the United States (Sachs 2004). The Role of the American Medical Profession - In our view, it is both crucial and obligatory for the American medical profession to play a central role in the transformation of thought and action that would enable the United States to assume symbolic and substantive leadership in meeting present challenges to global health. As economist Jeffrey Sachs (2004) has stated: "For the first time in decades, we must strive to understand problems—tropical diseases, malnutrition, and the like—[that] are urgent concerns of people abroad. In the case of a superpower ignorance is not bliss; it is a threat to Americans and to humanity." The members of the American medical profession have the trained competence to understand these problems. What is more, as [End Page 357] physicians, they have a collective professional responsibility to be the "conscience of society" in matters that affect and are affected by health and illness. There are those both within and outside the U.S. medical profession who would respond to this exhortation with the claim that at this historical juncture, individually and collectively, American physicians do not have sufficient authority to assume the leadership role being asked of them—that they are too demoralized by the barrage of criticism for excessive dominance and autonomy to which they have been subject from the 1970s through the 1990s, and by their struggles to practice, under the current system of managed care, the kind of medicine that meets their standards of clinical and moral excellence. In response to this contention, we join with medical historian Rosemary Stevens in affirming that there are strong reasons to believe that if the profession mobilizes itself organizationally, its role as moral leaders could be effective: The profession has long had an authoritative voice in American culture. . . . Despite the doom and gloom expressed over managed care from the early 1990s to the present, doctors have not lost their normative role in American society. They embody a huge reservoir of goodwill inherited from the past. This is derived in various parts: from long respect of the doctor as healer; from the ideology of medicine as public service and the doctor as hero; from the huge advances of scientific medicine in the 20th century, continuing through promises to the future; from claims for scientific objectivity; from the symbolic value of medicine as culturally suited to other American values . . . and . . . from the sheer visibility of national medical organizations, even in the absence of a unified governmental health policy. (Stevens 2001, pp. 348–49)
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U.S. SOFT POWER IS NECESSARY TO SOLVE THE WORLD’S MAJOR POWERS INCLUDING TERRORISM AND VIOLENCE, HARD POWER IS NOT ENOUGH
Joseph Nye, Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, ’02, Financial Times [http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2002/nye_ballgame_ft_122802.htm]
Now the new strategy declares that we are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies falling into the hands of the embittered few. Instead of strategic rivalry, "today, the world's great powers find ourselves on the same side united by common dangers of terrorist violence and chaos".
And it is true that America's military power is essential to global stability, and an essential part of the response to terrorism. But the metaphor of war should not blind Americans to the fact that suppressing terrorism will take years of patient unspectacular civilian co-operation with other countries in areas such as intelligence sharing, police work, tracing financial flows, and co-operation among customs officials. The military success in Afghanistan dealt with the easiest part of the problem, the toppling of the weak Taliban government in a poor country. But all the precision bombing destroyed only a small fraction of the al-Qaeda network which retains cells in some 60 countries. And bombing is no answer to the existence of cells in Kuala Lumpur, Hamburg or Detroit. Rather than proving the unilateralists' point, the partial nature of the success in Afghanistan illustrates the continuing need for co-operation. The best response to transnational terrorist networks is networks of cooperating government agencies.
The problem for Americans in the 21st century is that there are more and more things outside the control of even the most powerful state. Although the United States does well on the traditional measures of power, there is a whole new ball game increasingly more going on in the world that those measures fail to capture. The paradox of American power is that world politics is changing in a way that means the strongest power since Rome cannot achieve some of its most crucial international goals acting alone. The US lacks both the international and domestic prerequisites to resolve conflicts that are internal to other societies, and to monitor and control transnational transactions that threaten Americans at home. On many of the key issues today, such as international financial stability, drug smuggling, the spread of diseases or global climate change, military power simply cannot produce success, and its use can sometimes be counterproductive Instead as the largest country, the United States must mobilize international coalitions to address these shared threats and challenges.
The agenda of world politics has become like a three-dimensional chess game in which one can win only by playing vertically as well as horizontally. On the top board of classic interstate military issues, the United States is likely to remain the only superpower for years to come, and it makes sense to speak in traditional terms of unipolarity or hegemony. However, on the middle board of interstate economic issues, the distribution of power is already multipolar The United States cannot obtain the outcomes it wants on trade, anti-trust or financial regulation issues without the co-operation of the European Union, Japan and others. It makes little sense to call this American hegemony. And on the bottom board of transnational issues, power is widely distributed and chaotically organized among state and non-state actors. It makes no sense at all to call this a unipolar world or an American empire. And this is the set of issues that is now intruding into the world of grand strategy as illustrated by Bush's new doctrine. Yet the new unilateralist part of his administration still focuses solely on the top board of classic military solutions. Like children with a hammer, all problems look like nails to them.
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The willingness of other countries to co-operate on the solution of transnational issues depends in part on their own self interest, but also on the attractiveness of American positions. That power to attract and persuade is what I call soft power. It means that others want what you want, and there is less need to use carrots and sticks to make others do what you want. Hard power grows out of a country's military and economic might. Soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, ideals, and policies. Hard power will always remain important in a world of nation states guarding their independence, but soft power will become increasingly important in dealing with the transnational issues that require multilateral cooperation for their solution. Yet a recent Pew Charitable Trust poll finds that American policies have led to lowered favourability ratings for the US over the past two years in 19 of 27 countries, including particularly the Islamic countries so important to the war on terrorism. The new unilateralist wing of the administration is urging policies that squander our soft power.
No large country can afford to be purely multilateralist, and sometimes the United States must take the lead by itself as it did in Afghanistan. And the credible threat of a unilateral option was probably essential to get the UN Security Council to pass resolution 1441 that brought the inspectors back to Iraq. But the US should incline toward multilateralism whenever possible as a way to legitimize its power and to gain broad acceptance of its new strategy. Pre-emption that is legitimized by multilateral sanction is far less costly and a far less dangerous precedent than when we assert that we alone can act as judge, jury and executioner. Granted, multilateralism can be used by smaller states to restrict American freedom of action, but this does not mean that it is not generally in American interests. Learning to listen to others and to define the national interests broadly to include global interests will be crucial to the success of the new strategy and whether others see the American preponderance it proclaims as benign or not.
The challenge for the United States will be to learn how to work with other countries to better control the non-state actors that will increasingly share the stage, with nation-states. President Bush is correct that America will continue to be the only military superpower, and its military strength remains essential for global stability and as part of the response to terrorism. But to successfully implement his new strategy, he will need to pay more attention to soft power and multilateral co-operation than was true of the early stages of his administration.
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Contention 3 is Solvency
Increasing aid reverses the Gag Rule
Feminist Daily News Wire, April 6, 2005, Boxer Amendment to End Global Gag Rule Passes in the Senate
Led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a champion for women's rights, the Senate passed an amendment to a foreign aid bill on Tuesday to overturn the Global Gag Rule. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Boxer and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), was passed 52-46, with eight Republican Senators joining the Democrats. Reuters rreports that the US Senate has repeatedly rejected the dangerous and restrictive policy since it was first imposed by the Reagan Administration in 1984. Though President Clinton rescinded the policy for the eight years of his presidency, President George W. Bush issued an executive order to reinstate the Global Gag rule during his first official day in office in January 2001. The Global Gag Rule is a harmful US foreign policy that bars family planning programs receiving US international aid from using their own monies from separate sources for abortion counseling, advocacy, and referrals. President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if it passes, Reuters reports, although the House of Representatives have yet to take up its version of the foreign aid bill. According to the Associated Press, it is unlikely that the bill, which would authorize $34 billion in State Department and foreign aid spending, will pass. No such foreign aid bill has passed since 1985, which results in actual foreign aid to be authorized through separate appropriations bills.
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The gag rule causes deaths overseas, hurts women’s reproductive rights, and suppresses freedom of speech and democracy. The US needs to reclaim its leadership in human rights and remove the gag rule.
Melissa Upreti, legal adviser with the Center for Reproductive Rights' International Legal Program, LL.M from Columbia Law School, Summer / Fall 2003, Women's Rights Law Reporter, “PANEL TWO: The Impact of the "Global Gag Rule" on Women's Reproductive Health Worldwide”, lexis
The third point which I think is very important to understand is that the nature of the abortion debate in most countries across the world is very different from what it is like here in the U.S. In many countries, unsafe abortion is a leading cause of death among pregnant women. In countries like Nepal, Uganda, and Peru, where unsafe abortion is a leading cause of death, the debate on abortion is completely different. It is less political. It is more a matter of life and death; and something like the Global Gag Rule totally ignores that particular fact. The first type of harm that has become visible to some extent is the harm to women's reproductive health. We live in a world where eighty thousand women die annually due to unsafe abortions. NGOs, in countries where abortion [*195] is legal, cannot provide abortions or refer or counsel on abortion. In Nepal, it is estimated that 539 women die from pregnancy-related complications for every 100,000 live births. In the United States, the maternal mortality rate is 7 per 100,000 live births; half of these deaths are due to unsafe abortions. Abortion was decriminalized in Nepal in 2002; however, NGOs receiving USAID funding for family planning programs will not be able to provide abortion counseling or services or make referrals. This will have a devastating effect on women because the government in its policy has clearly stated that the NGO will be the main providers of abortion services because the government does not have enough resources. In Bolivia, the Ministry of Health, which technically is not even covered by the Global Gag Rule, has indicated that it will no longer endorse lifesaving care for women suffering complications from illegal and unsafe abortions because of the Global Gag Rule. The government also has gone to the extent of suspending efforts to permit distribution of emergency contraception because of the Global Gag Rule. This point demonstrates that the Global Gag Rule casts its net very widely; and it does not just implicate abortion, but also has a chilling effect and, as a result, affects a whole host of services. The Global Gag Rule also limits women's access to information. The Global Gag Rule prohibits the distribution of neutral, factual information about abortion, even if the goal is making legal abortions available or preventing women from putting their lives at risk by undergoing unsafe abortions. As expressed in the words of one activist from Senegal, "I think that the Global Gag Rule is shortsighted, created by people sitting in Washington D.C. who cannot see the implications for women and the rest of the world. If it becomes taboo to talk about abortion, abortion will slip even further underground with disastrous implications for women." In Bolivia, where abortion is legal, doctors and healthcare organizations cannot even provide information about abortion to protect a woman's physical health or even provide information that abortion is an option. In South Africa, healthcare organizations cannot engage in public education programs about HIV and AIDS that include the availability of safe and legal abortion as an option for HIV-infected pregnant women. The Global Gag Rule is inherently anti-democratic because it violates the right to free speech. We live in a world where 80,000 women die from unsafe abortions per year. This occurs mostly in countries where abortion is highly restricted or illegal. The Global Gag Rule prevents overseas NGOs from lobbying their own governments to bring about law reform and, as a consequence, to save women's lives. In Peru, the executive director of a U.S.-funded women's rights organization who was invited to Washington, D.C. to speak with the media and U.S. policymakers on the negative effects of the Global Gag Rule, declined to discuss the issue of abortion and its impact on women in Peru. She later revealed that she feared that publicly discussing abortion would jeopardize her U.S. funding, which provides low-income women access to family planning. NGOs experience firsthand the effects of illegal, unsafe abortion; and they are often called upon to participate in debates about abortion law reform. However, the Global Gag Rule forces these NGOs to limit their participation in a democratic process in order to continue to receive funding. Interestingly, the Global Gag Rule does not impose any restrictions on anti-choice speech. Only one viewpoint is restricted and suppressed, that of the NGOs. NGOs that receive funding from the U.S. government have to support and provide counseling that advises women not to have abortions and they must condemn and demonize abortions publicly. In Bolivia, for instance, 390 women per 100,000 live births die from pregnancy-related complications. NGOs that have formed a coalition to press for the liberalization of Bolivia's abortion laws and spread public health awareness were forced to curtail their activities for fear of losing funding for speaking about the issue. In Russia, where most abortions are legal, U.S.-funded NGOs cannot meet with government officials to discuss their concerns regarding the negative health impact of a proposed restrictive abortion law. These examples reflect on the nature of the abortion debate in countries across the world, particularly low income countries, and demonstrate that the right to [*196] abortion is not just about choice, it is about saving women's lives. For millions of women in low income, developing countries, it is a matter of life and death. The Global Gag Rule also affects the ability of U.S.-based NGOs to advocate for safer abortion services and the decriminalization of abortion where it is illegal by making it impossible for overseas NGOs to collaborate with them. The Global Gag Rule undermines the sovereignty of foreign governments because foreign governments are not able to collaborate on abortion-related projects with NGOs receiving U.S. government funding in their country. The Global Gag Rule prevents NGOs from carrying out
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their governments' public policy decisions in countries where abortions are legal, safe, and accessible. The Global Gag Rule not only violates freedom of speech and women's right to safe and legal abortion, but it also violates international commitments to women's reproductive rights. It is discriminatory and a source of violence against women in so far as it compromises their physical and mental well being. The Rule violates the commitments made at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action in Cairo and the 1995 Women's Conference Platform for Action in Beijing, commitments made to ensure post-abortion counseling, education and family planning services that help prevent repeat abortions. It violates the international commitment to reduce recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services, leading to more unwanted pregnancies. The United States government, through the imposition of the Global Gag Rule, has established a double standard for women, because the right to abortion is protected by the United States Constitution; but overseas, there is absolutely no respect for the right to freedom of speech or for the right of a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion, even if it means that she should have to suffer terrible health consequences, or even die. The restriction on overseas NGOs would be totally unconstitutional if imposed on an American NGO, and there is case law to that effect. Some important reactions to the Global Gag Rule across the world include the following: European Parliamentarians have condemned the Global Gag Rule. In March 2001, European Parliamentarians from twenty countries signed a landmark petition condemning the Global Gag Rule. In June of 2002, members of the Dutch, United Kingdom, and Russian Parliaments, and a member of European Parliament spoke before the U.S. Congress on how the Global Gag Rule restricts their foreign aid programs and hinders their democracy-building efforts as well. Rokitsky Rafailovoch, who is a Russian Parliamentarian, emphasized that President Bush must realize his policies are not simply conservative politics. His decisions endanger women's lives, rupture political relationships, and demonstrate how little his administration is willing to do for women's health in this country and abroad. Restrictions on speech is what my country faced under the communist regime and is what we have been trying to overcome this past decade. In June 2001, the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the Global Gag Rule in court because it restricts the Center's right to freedom of speech and it impedes reform of reproductive health laws world-wide, including abortion laws. Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Barbara Lee supported this lawsuit, and the Center also was able to obtain the support of a number of human rights organizations who signed petitions and submitted affidavits. Unfortunately, the Courts here in the U.S. did not see the issue the same way that we do; and they dismissed our case by ruling that any impact on U.S.-based advocates was caused by the independent choice of foreign NGOs to take USAID funds. The assumption that their choice is "independent" could not be further from the truth. The American Bar Association has issued a resolution against the Global Gag Rule saying that: To one seeking either legal or medical counsel, incomplete advice can be worse than no advice at all, misleading consumers into believing that they are receiving all of the information necessary to make informed choices, when, in fact, the advice is skewed toward a particular viewpoint. The prohibition [*197] imposed upon the healthcare professional against supplying complete information may be life-threatening. And this could not be closer to the truth. The American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Nursing Association have also opposed the Global Gag Rule because it directly conflicts with the obligations of medical practitioners; punishing communication between female patients and their physicians is tantamount to exporting malpractice. Opponents of international family planning and related health programs have gone beyond the Global Gag Rule and continue to work for cuts and restrictions on funding. The cuts and restrictions imposed during recent years, and the threats to extend such measures into the future, continue to cause a significant increase in unplanned pregnancies, abortions, maternal and infant deaths, transmissions of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The U.S. government's decision to cut funding to UNFPA is due to UNFPA's alleged support for coerced abortions in China. In fact, the State Department has submitted a report clearly establishing that this is not the truth. At the Asia Pacific Conference on Population and Development, the United States delegation tried to water down women's rights to health and family planning significantly, reducing the decisions on reproduction rights to a moral debate on abortion. Given the nature of the impact of the Global Gag Rule, it is important to understand that the Global Gag Rule is not just about abortion. It is about so much more. It is about what the United States stands for in the eyes of the world and how it strives to promote human rights and democracy, not just within its borders but across the world.
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REVERSAL OF THE GLOBAL GAG RULE WOULD PROVIDE NGOs WITH $34 MILLION A YEAR FOR FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES
Vanessa Renée Casavant, Staff Writer, 06-06-’05, Legislative Gazette [http://www.legislativegazette.com/printable.php?id=628]
Each year, 500,000 women across the world die from preventable complications of pregnancy, according to Family Planning Advocates of New York State.
Leaders of their European counterpart spent last week in New York discussing the effects of President Bush revoking promised funding for family planning agencies in developing countries.
For the past three years, Bush has stopped a $34 million appropriation by Congress to the United Nations Population Fund that provides for family planning and emergency response services in 140 countries. Within the next few months, Bush is expected to make his decision on this year’s $34 million appropriation.
“They are essentially holding this money ransom,” said state Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island.
She was joined last Wednesday in the Albany Room restaurant by state Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D,WF-Mount Vernon, and Vicky Claeys, who heads the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European office in Brussels, for a round table discussion on this issue. Savino said she found it appalling the United States would go into developing nations to help and then turn around and deliberately withhold funds from them based on the ideology of a select few.
The funds earmarked by Congress have been tied up partly because of Bush’s reinstatement of the global gag rule, according to Family Planning Advocates. The policy prohibits funding of any foreign family planning agency that, with its own money, provides abortion counseling or services, or advocates for more lenient abortion laws. The agencies are required to use their own money because of the 1973 Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits funds being used for abortions overseas and biomedical research and lobbying on abortion was prohibited in 1981. As of two years ago, no violations to these policies had been reported, according to Population Action International.
The global gag rule also directly affects the funding and donation of contraceptives to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
“It is scandalous that the United States refuses to provide funding to UNFPA and IPPF because of the anti-choice attitude of the Bush Administration,” she said.
Two months ago, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of overturning the global rule. However, the U.S. House of Representatives has yet to move the bill.
“The global gag rule has a very devastating affect throughout the world,” Claeys said. “We have lost more than $80 million over the years.”
She said the lack of funds has forced clinics to close and the gap is next to impossible to fill with alternative funding. Even a grassroots campaign called 34 Million Friends of UNFP that was started by two women from New Mexico in 2002 has barely scratched the surface with $2.6 million. Claeys said with clinics being forced to close, reproductive health care has become inaccessible to many in some of the poorest countries of the world, eroded social support programs and diminished education about sexually transmitted diseases.
“You need the whole package,” she said. “It’s not just about abortion.”
According to Family Planning Advocates, the $34 million could prevent 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths each year. In addition, the money could help prevent 800,000 abortions and 2 million unintended pregnancies.
“You’re not going to reduce it by making it impossible,” Claeys said about abortion. “That’s absolute rubbish.”
According to the World Health Organization, more than 80,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions. JoAnn Smith, president and CEO of Family Planning Advocates of New York State, said U.S. policies involving the global gag rule fail to recognize the need for preventative health care.